‘Get Australia Back on Track’: Dutton’s last ditch appeal
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Sunday launched a last-ditch appeal to voters, offering sweeteners on tax cuts and mortgage relief to turbocharge his party’s bid for office.
Against a giant blue screen pledging to “Get Australia Back on Track,” Mr Dutton made his cornerstone pledges at his campaign launch in the key Sydney battleground of Werriwa, an outer-urban electorate where the Opposition hopes to cut through to voters experiencing high rates of household stress.
His wide-ranging speech to a modest, but packed auditorium of party members and three former Liberal prime ministers, Mr Dutton charged through the Coalition’s best hits of national security, cuts to immigration and his ambition to adopt a nuclear energy plan, with his promise “education not indoctrination” in schools raising the loudest cheers.
“Do I think the Coalition can win this election? Absolutely I do. We can – and we must!” he said to the delight of the audience.
But the Coalition Leader’s main task in hand was to strike a chord beyond the standing ovation of the party faithful to lure record numbers of wavering voters with his pledges to ease hip-pocket pain.
A series of more personal videos, interspersing the rallying political cries, were clearly intended to show the human side of a leader known for his “hard man” image.
“I feel I got my father’s emotional gene,” said Mr Dutton in one of the clips before he entered the auditorium with his wife and three children.
But cost-of-living relief for “Australians who are really hurting from soaring bills and rent and mortgage stress,” remained front and centre of his appeal for votes.
“I say to Australians, it doesn’t have to be like this. There is a clear choice at this election,” he said as he took to the stage.
“Between more of the same under Labor – a weaker, less secure, and worse off Australia.
“Or much needed change under the Coalition – for a stronger, safer, and better Australia.”
The near simultaneous official launches of Mr Dutton’s and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s campaigns on Sunday on the other side of the country in Perth saw the two would-be leaders of the country locked in a bidding war for votes.
With Mr Dutton taking to the stage just an hour ahead of Mr Albanese, the Coalition went on the offensive on Sunday morning to sap the oxygen out of the Prime Minister’s own cost-of-living sugar hits.
With just ten days to go until pre-polling begins, Mr Dutton centred his pitch on a two-pronged promise of tax cuts and mortgage relief for struggling families.
He pledged a one-off tax cut of up to $1,200 for more than ten million taxpayers in the upcoming financial year alongside a plan to allow first-time buyers of newly built homes to be able to deduct mortgage payments from income taxes if he is elected on May 3.
The “first home buyers mortgage deduction scheme” would mean a family on average incomes would be about $11,000 a year better off — or $55,000 over five years.
It would be limited to five years and the first $650,000 of a mortgage, and would also be means-tested at $175,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples
The plan was a direct challenge to Mr Albanese’s offer to turn the tide on the nation’s housing crisis.
In Perth, the Prime Minister pledged $10b to build 100,000 homes exclusively for first-time buyers to move into from 2027 to help frustrated young Australians get their foot on the property ladder.
Both men know their appeals to relieve households struggling with groceries, energy bills and burdensome mortgages after years of high inflation and interest rates is the key to fulfilling their ambition for office.
Mr Dutton has previously hedged on promising tax reductions and his new policy seeks to outmanoeuvre Labor’s $17b offer to cut taxes by $5 a week from July 2026, before rising to $10 a week the following year.
The Coalition’s refusal to sign up to the Government’s plan has been a key point of attack for Labor, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers accusing the Opposition of a “brain explosion” for blocking tax relief.
Mr Dutton and his frontbench have, in turn, mocked Labor’s 70 cents a day tax cut as a “bandaid on a bullet wound” and “a slap in the face to hardworking Australians and an insult to families trying to make ends meet.”
Mr Dutton said the Coalition’s new temporary and targeted Cost of Living Tax Offset would buffer families while his Government addressed the underlying economic problems created by Labor, including weak growth and spiralling energy prices.
“Our Cost-of-Living Tax Offset will put more money back into the pockets of millions of Australians at a time when they’re being crushed by skyrocketing grocery bills, rent, mortgage repayments and insurance costs,” he said.
“Families are under financial pressure now,” Mr Dutton added.
“And we’ve heard their cry for help – for help now, not in 15 months.”
The Coalition says its $10b tax proposal would benefit around 85 per cent of taxpayers earning an annual taxable income of up to $144,000, with the full offset available to those earning between $48,000 and $104,000.
The unexpected sweetener comes on top of a slew of cost-of-living offers since the start of this year, starting with a $20,000 annual tax deduction for small business meal expenses and including $9.7b to match Labor’s promises on Medicare bulk-billing.
Mr Dutton has spent much of his early campaign dropping by bowsers to spruik his $6b promise to immediately slash the fuel excise by 25 cents a litre for 12 months.
The Coalition says its change will save someone filling up a 55-litre car about $14 a week — or more than $700 across the year.
His speech also touted its bid to reduce household electricity bills by around three per cent in 2026 through its cornerstone east coast gas reservation policy, presenting it as a longer term fix to energy bill relief that outmatches Labor’s three rounds of rebates.
Modelling by Frontier Economics released this week suggests the Coalition’s gas plan would reduce wholesale gas prices by 23 per cent — from about $14 per gigajoule to below $10 — which would flow through to bills.
Labor hopes its announcement in March on a further $150 for each household until the end of 2025 will be the sugar hit voters need.
But both parties are also playing a numbers game as they try to reach the elusive 76 seats needed for majority government.
Political experts believe the federal election could be won or lost in Western Sydney, a region made up of 14 seats, and Mr Dutton’s choice of Werriwa, held by Labor by a 5.3 per cent margin, was a strategic play.
As the campaign enters its third week, the Coalition will be hoping its latest pledges in such a key battleground will be key to delivering a win.