Senior members of the Albanese government insist they are not troubled by Labor’s loss in the Fadden byelection, as they seek to reassure Australians their main focus is on the cost-of-living crisis.
The Liberal National party retained the safe Gold Coast seat on Saturday in a byelection caused by the resignation of former minister Stuart Robert. There was a swing of about 2.5% to the LNP after preferences.
The result gave some breathing space to the federal Coalition leader, Peter Dutton, whose opposition party lost a byelection to a government for the first time in more 100 years in Aston in April. The Coalition also lost the Victorian and New South Wales state elections.
But federal Labor ministers said it would be “ridiculous” for Dutton to take any comfort out of the “lacklustre” result this weekend.
Celebrating the victory of LNP candidate Cameron Caldwell, Dutton said it was a “resounding result” that sent a clear message to the prime minister about cost-of-living pressures.
“Our country is going in the wrong direction under Anthony Albanese,” Dutton said.
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said the swing was “half the average swing that you would expect against a sitting government” at a byelection.
“To have a byelection against a sitting government where you only get a 2% in a swing in an area which is in your heartland is a very, very lethargic result indeed for the opposition,” Marles told Sky News on Sunday.
“The idea that Peter Dutton, as a Queenslander who is leading the Liberal party, would take any comfort out of this result at all frankly is ridiculous.”
The federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the Labor party was “neither surprised nor troubled by the outcome”.
“This was a safe blue-ribbon LNP seat with a double-digit margin before Saturday. It will be all those things after Saturday,” Chalmers told the ABC’s Insiders program.
The treasurer said the government already understood before the byelection that people were “under the pump”.
He said the government’s primary focus was on “providing cost-of-living help so we can take some of the edge off the pressures without adding to inflation”. “That was true before Saturday. It’s true after Saturday. It remains our focus,” Chalmers said.
More broadly, however, Chalmers acknowledged that Labor needed to “perform much better” in Queensland in federal elections.
Chalmers, who represents an outer metropolitan seat in south-east Queensland, said: “It’s been hard yards for us in Queensland for some time, and obviously, we need to do much better in Queensland than we have for the last decade or so.”
“There are opportunities for Labor here in Queensland. I think Queenslanders do respond well to the type of leadership that Anthony provides,” the treasurer said.
The deputy federal Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, told reporters that Dutton’s leadership was secure and that Marles’ interview on Sunday “wasn’t a convincing performance”.
Ley said she was not interested in ministers who were “taking pot shots or coming up with arbitrary tests of percentages”.
Ley said she would campaign against the government’s economic policies during planned visits to 17 seats in four states over the next two weeks, starting in Chalmers’ seat.
“Every time [people] go to the checkout, reach the next mortgage repayment or see a new bill come in, the costs are piling up, crushing families and smashing small businesses,” Ley told Sky News.
“Most Australians are feeling that pain, that feeling that things are getting harder. Well, I can tell Australians who to blame – blame Albo-nomics.”
The government has sought to highlight recent policies including cheaper childcare and medicines and the energy price caps, while arguing it was seeking to ensure it did not add to inflation.
