How can you tell you're in a teal seat? Dutton is nowhere to be seen

Sydney Morning Herald

24-04-2025

This is a danger sign for the Liberals if the polls are right and Albanese stays in office, whether in majority or minority government. Dutton has made no secret of the fact that he believes victory lies with the 'battlers' in the outer suburbs, but there is no path to power without success in at least some of the teal seats. So Dutton looks too aloof to talk to the voters he needs. Can a Liberal leader who cannot visit a teal seat remain a Liberal leader?
The campaign against the teals has relied heavily on personal attacks. In Bradfield, again, the Liberals have a truck-mounted billboard that circles the railway stations and polling booths to remind voters that Boele once made an off-colour remark at the hairdresser. Every candidate is accountable for what they've done or said, and it is no different for the teals.
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What is missing is a value proposition to convince the teal voters to return to the Liberals. The teal message at the last election was about climate change, integrity in government and empowering women. This year, the Liberal flyers in the same electorates are about a strong economy, cheaper energy, affordable homes, safer communities and quality healthcare. There is nothing customised for a woman who likes Boele's message about 'saying no to party politics' and getting action on climate.
One Liberal is privately worried about Team Dutton's offer to the teal voters: 'There's nothing. They didn't even try.' It is worth noting that the frustration over the economy might work for Dutton in these seats just as it works in others.
'The anger we saw towards us at the last election is certainly not there,' says one Liberal familiar with the teal campaigns. Dutton may not be hugely popular, but this is nothing compared to the anger at Scott Morrison as prime minister three years ago. A second difference, he says, is that Liberal supporters were too complacent about the threat in 2022 and are alive to that mistake in 2025.
There is another shift this time: the Liberals have been smarter in choosing candidates. More than half are women, many have backgrounds in business and most are socially liberal. None is like Katherine Deves, who spoke out against transgender rights as the candidate for Warringah at the last election – and suffered a 5.7 per cent fall in the Liberal primary vote.
Anything can happen in the final week of a campaign. Dutton outplayed Albanese on the Voice referendum and may do so again on May 3. So far, however, the opposition leader has run a very ordinary campaign. In week one, he sounded too ready to move into Kirribilli House. In week two, he had to retreat on working from home. Then he verballed the Indonesian president. In week four, he sounded confused about cutting $3 billion in tax breaks for electric vehicles. No week has gone clearly his way.
Albanese has been more disciplined. He fell off a stage in the first week, and finally admitted it in the fourth week, but he has been steady on policy. Dutton, in contrast, has slipped on a series of policy banana peels, raising real questions about whether he and his team have done the work required to govern.
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Dutton's absence from the teal seats will be remembered if the Coalition falls short of victory. Could he be doing more to win back those teal voters? Could he bring himself to tell them he wants their support? That would mean taking a few steps toward them, rather than expecting them to rush back to him. There's an old saying for this: 'History is made by those who show up.'
David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.