The stakes are not as high as they might have been in 2001, but for the purposes of lifting morale and seeding hope in the Liberal Party, a win is critical.
In July 2001, four months before Peter Dutton entered parliament, John Howard’s government held Aston in a byelection against all odds. The victory created a momentum swing that heralded an equally unlikely general election win in November that year.
Until that point, the government was being hammered because of hostility following the GST introduction, the unrelated but conflated hysteria over petrol hitting $1 a litre, and a perception that it was “mean and tricky”.Earlier in the year, Coalition governments had been butchered in state elections in Western Australia and Queensland, and Howard lost the once blue-ribbon federal seat of Ryan in a byelection. The published polls were dire, too.
For the Liberals, the stakes in Aston are not as high as they may have been in 2001, given the next election is still two years away, and the Coalition, in opposition, is unlikely to win that anyway.Nor will Saturday’s outcome affect the balance of power in the House of Representatives. At the May 2022 federal election, the unpopularity of Scott Morrison, which was especially pronounced in Victoria, and personal controversy surrounding Tudge, combined to engineer a 7.3 per cent two-party swing against the Liberals in Aston, leaving the party holding the once safe seat by 2.8 per cent.With Morrison and Tudge now out of the picture, the Liberals would be unlucky to suffer another swing on top of that 10 months ago. But they are worried.
These, along with small businesses and the regions, are the people that Dutton, upon assuming the leadership last year, The explosion inside the Victorian Liberals over state MP Moira Deeming attending an anti-transgender rally, which was also attended by neo-Nazis, was also most damaging, Dutton said, as if anyone needed a reminder.
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