If Peter Dutton’s opposition are true defenders of the working class, support for Labor’s stage-three overhaul may be their ultimate test

Peter Dutton’s claim the Coalition are defenders of the Australian working class will be impossible to sustain if the Liberal and National parties oppose tax relief for those they claim to represent. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

In February 2023 Peter Dutton told the first joint Coalition party room of the year that the Liberals and Nationals were the “parties of the Australian working class”.

Much like the kid who gives himself a nickname, it was hard to take this self-identification seriously. But it’s worth paying attention to as a statement of Dutton’s intent, if not as a description of reality.