Before the Liberal MP Alan Tudge’s resignation setting up the byelection contest in Aston, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, described the party’s vote in Victoria as at a “low-water mark”.
Now we know there is further to fall, and the Liberals’ brand under Dutton is underwater.
There is one caveat on the result: the fact that Tudge’s slim 2.8% margin was largely built on postals and pre-poll votes, which suggests the Liberal candidate, Roshena Campbell, could yet peel back some of Mary Doyle’s margin.
But Labor has won a good swing to it in a Liberal heartland seat, despite the fact that no government in more than 100 years has won a seat off the opposition at a byelection.
Despite higher inflation and 10 consecutive rate rises, the mortgage-belt seat in eastern Melbourne has not punished the Albanese government. It has taken up Labor’s invitation to send a message to the Liberal party that it can do better than Dutton.
Labor believes its early strong lead was built on the back of Chinese Australians, who punished the Liberal party at the 2022 election but held up reasonably well for Tudge, a former minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs.
And how did Labor seek to persuade these voters? Campaign posters with Campbell pictured alongside the former prime minister Scott Morrison and current leader, Dutton.
But it’s not all about scare campaigns. Labor can point to its own record in improving the relationship with China. Anthony Albanese, Richard Marles, Penny Wong and Don Farrell all have met their Chinese counterparts and there are further talks to come on China dropping punitive trade measures.
Before tonight the Liberal party held just three seats in Melbourne. Deakin, held by the shadow minister for housing and government services, Michael Sukkar, and Menzies, held by Keith Wolahan, were won on even thinner margins than Tudge’s 2022 victory.
They’re sweating now, because wipeout beckons for the Liberal party.
The party’s problems are not peculiar to Victoria, despite how Dutton tried to spin the result that way in the aftermath.
Much of the focus at the 2022 election was on the clutch of six inner-city seats the Liberals lost to teal independents. But it also lost two to the Greens in Brisbane, and traditional Liberal seats to Labor in Melbourne (Higgins) and Sydney (Bennelong).
The party, which holds no seats bordering Sydney harbour, now holds just two in Melbourne, both under threat.
But out of Liberal disaster, there is also an opportunity. Better to get a shock to the system now while there is a year or two still in this term of parliament for the party to correct course.
Dutton’s judgment to offer minimal bipartisanship on a few issues like the national anti-corruption commission and maximum negativity must now be radically revised.
In parliament Albanese has hammered the Liberal party for opposing jobs to be created by the national reconstruction fund, the housing Australia future fund, the emissions reduction targets and the safeguard mechanism to achieve them. The Coalition even voted against power price relief.
On the Indigenous voice, Labor begged for bipartisanship by arguing that it was an opportunity to elevate both Albanese and Dutton in a moment of national unity.
Instead, Dutton has conducted a shadow campaign nitpicking about detail and driving the vote down through cheap scares about legal consequences.
The Liberals’ problems began by failing to learn the lessons of the 2022 election.
Dutton won the leadership uncontested because the other contender, Josh Frydenberg, was taken out by voters.
His leadership seemed secure because he is the most senior conservative in a party with a much-reduced moderate faction.
A result this poor must call that into question. However unlikely the alternatives seem, the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, the deputy, Sussan Ley, or a generation next candidate such as Andrew Hastie all must have watched the Aston outcome on Saturday thinking “I could do better than this”.
Labor has succeeded in turning the byelection into a referendum on Dutton, not on Albanese.
Over on Sky News, Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff Peta Credlin argued the result was driven by cranky conservatives not turning up to vote.
It’s true that poor turnout was a factor. But the party must avoid the seductive logic that this is an aberration.
Metro areas have now swung away from the Liberals at too many elections, state and federal, to write off the result like that.
They need to listen to the issues of concern to the seats they need to win, not just the rump they still hold in Queensland and the regions. Sensible emissions reduction policy and a rejection of culture war issues must be top of the list.
On the ABC, Wolahan extended a hand to regional members to meet with metro MPs to reconsider how to win.
After a result this poor, the conversation must encompass not just fiddling around the edges of one or two issues, it must include the leadership as well.
