What harbour views? Disciplined Dutton stays on message in Melbourne

The stunning views of Sydney Harbour from Kirribilli House were the last thing Peter Dutton wanted to talk about when he landed in Melbourne for his first visit of the election campaign.

With growing rumblings among Coalition MPs about an underwhelming start to his campaign, Dutton knew it was not a day for slip-ups or distractions. Discipline was the key word. The opposition leader arrived in Victoria with his game face on, and a determination not to veer off message, regardless of the questions he was asked.

After years as a second-tier campaign priority, Melbourne is now a crucial battleground, highlighted by the fact Dutton and Anthony Albanese converged in the city on Tuesday. Dutton knows he has to pick up a swag of seats in Victoria’s capital to have a chance at forming government. Albanese, meanwhile, hopes a Melbourne firewall can keep him ensconced in the Lodge – the prime ministerial residence in Canberra that Dutton breezily suggested he would reject in favour of Kirribilli House a day earlier.

Labor leapt upon his remarks as a sign of hubris, and it was the story of the day Dutton never wanted.

He arrived in Victoria with his splashiest policy announcement of the campaign: a promise to scrap $2.2 billion in federal funding for Melbourne’s controversial suburban rail loop and redirect most of that money for a rail link from the airport to the inner city.

Asked at a press conference to elaborate on his intention to live in Sydney rather than Canberra, Dutton refused to acknowledge the question, instead spruiking his airport rail plan and attacking the Victorian Labor government. Singing Sydney’s praises while in Melbourne is no vote winner.

While Dutton’s words were on message, the setting of the event was decidedly not. In a curious move, the rail announcement was not delivered at either end of the proposed urban train line, or anywhere along it. Instead, Dutton appeared far away at Marnong Estate, a winery perched above rolling green hills and with alpacas roaming in a paddock. It was a picturesque setting, just one unconnected to the policy he was selling.

Asked to explain the location, Liberal candidate for Hawke Simmone Cottom said you would usually see an array of planes descending into Melbourne airport from the winery, but there were fewer than usual in the sky on Tuesday. Coalition transport spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie seemed perplexed, saying she was simply going where she was told by the Liberal Party’s “advancers” – staff members responsible for scouting out potential locations.

From there, Dutton moved to a round table with around 25 community leaders and crime victims in the south-east suburb of Berwick. This was comfortable thematic territory for the former Queensland police officer, who famously said in 2018 that Melburnians were afraid to go out to dinner because of gang violence.

Seven years later, crime is again a big concern in Melbourne and Dutton believes a muscular law-and-order message can win votes in the outer suburbs. Among the crime victims Dutton met with was Harry Hutchinson, the owner of a menswear business who choked back tears as he spoke about his shop being raided by thieves nine times in the past nine months. Hutchinson previously made headlines for being fined almost $10,000 for reopening his store during Victoria’s coronavirus lockdowns.

Dutton rounded out his day in the CBD by meeting with AFL legend Nick Riewoldt, whose sister Madeleine died of aplastic anaemia, a rare bone marrow condition, in 2015. Dutton pledged $3 million in support for Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision, the charity her family established to raise funds for cancer research.

Albanese arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday afternoon, having spent the morning at a hospital in Adelaide answering questions on tariffs and interest rates. Having basked in the popularity of Western Australian Premier Roger Cook and South Australia’s Peter Malinauskas, he does not expect the same effect when he appears alongside Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.

Her third-term Labor administration has sunk into deep unpopularity since the retirement of Daniel Andrews, raising Coalition hopes of big gains in Victoria, where they hold just 10 of 39 seats. As the national vote has swung back towards the government recently, party strategists mutter that Victoria has continued to trend away from Labor.

While Dutton was talking big numbers at three separate events, Albanese went straight to the perennial battleground seat of Corangamite, based around Geelong, to announce $5 million for a sports facility. On the drive into Melbourne, he swung by a Werribee urgent care clinic in the super safe Labor seat of Lalor.

“Sorry to disturb you,” he said as he walked through the waiting room on a quick stop.

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