After weeks of uncertainty, the moment is finally upon us. The 2025 Federal Election has been officially called for May 3rd, and the Labor campaign has begun in earnest.
About time too seeing how Dutton's Liberal Party has been running their election campaign at full speed since 2023, and in that time they've more than made up the ground lost by Scomo's bumbling, consequence avoidant style of leadership.
The stakes are high this year, so before we settle in for a month of defusing Coalition propagandism, let's take a look at the situation as it stands, how we got to it, and what our course should be going forward.
As aforementioned, we're running up to this election off the back of a year and six months of aggressive, largely unrestrained electioneering with a focus on what has up until comparatively recently been considered a long shot: Making Dutton, voted the worst health minister in 35 years, seem like a reasonable option for national leadership. And I'm deeply concerned to report this push has been fairly successful.
Immediately after the Voice Referendum, the Liberals took a very strong lead in the primary vote opinion polls which they have held ever since, rarely slipping below a 7% lead the whole of 2024. The two party preferred was a harder fight, but one which Albo and his Labor party ran out of ability to contend by October; finding it hard to maintain their position against a campaign entirely based on deliberate misinformation and inflaming the passions of discontented people.
From AI generated attack ads, to terrorising the seat of Dunkley down in Melbourne during their by-election, to unashamed fearmongering against Albanese government policies beneficial to the average Australian, right through to glorified school yard bullying of the Prime Minister at a private function, there really was no depth to which Dutton and his hit squad formerly known as the Liberal-National Coalition wouldn't sink in order to win over voters and deprive Labor of any momentum. (And that wasn't even the worst of it either.)
Add to that the signifigant PR boost by way of nearly entirely favourable coverage in the media, sweeping their many and varied misdeeds under the rug while nailing Labor for even the smallest issues, and it becomes pretty easy to see how more than half the country now suddenly see Peter Dutton as a viable option after having rejected the Liberals wholesale a few short years ago.
The field has been meticulously rigged in their favour and the game was, for a while, theirs to win. No longer.
Dutton, in his arrogance, has made a crucial mistake. Feeling himself assured of victory, he and his party shifted back on to the usual Liberal attitude to policy (Shambolic, out of touch and mildly contemptuous) a little too early and a mite too strongly, and in this has seriously misjudged what the country actually wants and cares about.
And it's not just me saying that either. The two party preferred data so far gathered in the last 2 months indicates at least a 5 point drop for the Liberals from their position in December-January as well as a respectable Labor resurgence, both of which coincide pretty well with some choice remarks by our Peter, such as attempting to push an economically non viable nuclear energy plan and vowing to override the will of local governments on citizenship ceremonies.
From here, their problems have just snowballed, doubling down where they should be backing up, rejecting questioning and criticism where honest engagement might serve better. They've dug themselves into a hole policy-wise; now is the time to exploit this imbalance and keep them there.
Which is where we come in. Maintain the pressure, call out Dutton and his cronies wherever they slip up, ask the difficult questions, force them to provide detail rather than ambiguity and rhetoric, make their supporters aware of what the Coalition actually support and how it hurts them, but perhaps most importantly: shout the truth of Labor's policies, achievements, and plans for Australia's future loudly, clearly and persistently, in any way you can, so that no amount of disinformation and lies can gain a hold again.
Make no mistake, we stand on a precipice and complacency will cost us our country. Action, here and now, might just save us and the next generation from another 10 year long Liberal disaster.