The opposition leader insists there’s still a pathway to victory but has been criticised for stoking culture wars as he fights for conservative voter preferences.
Public polling has tracked away from the coalition over the course of the campaign and Peter Dutton has little time to turn it around before election day on Saturday.
Mr Dutton maintains internal numbers are more optimistic than the public ones, as he hits more than two dozen seats in the final week of campaigning.
He’s credited “quiet Australians” for his optimism, saying people in outer suburbs who believe Labor hasn’t delivered for them would turn to the coalition.
The parties’ polling was positive and those numbers reflected “the mood that the marginal seat members are reporting back to me at the pre-polling”, he said before campaigning in the ultra-marginal NSW south coast seat of Gilmore.
The term “quiet Australians” was famously used by former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison after his unexpected victory in 2019, which defied polls that consistently predicted a Labor victory.
The opposition leader on Tuesday also visited Whitlam in the NSW Southern Highlands, where incumbent Labor MP Stephen Jones is retiring.
Anthony Albanese criticised the opposition leader for stoking culture wars, most recently for criticising Welcome to Country ceremonies.
“Peter Dutton has spent a political career stoking division, trying to turn Australians against each other, trying to start culture wars,” the prime minister said while campaigning in Brisbane.
“I am not interested in culture wars, I am interested in fighting for Australians.”
Mr Dutton’s office was vandalised on Tuesday, with the shopfront covered in red paint.
Posters criticising his stance on refugees, comparing him to US President Donald Trump, calling him a fascist and hosting the Indigenous rights slogan, “always was, always will be Aboriginal land” were stuck on the windows.
Labor has sought to distance itself from the debate over whether Indigenous Welcome to Country ceremonies and acknowledgements to Country have become overdone.
Coalition campaign spokesman James Paterson said the opposition leader hadn’t proactively made the ceremonies an issue, but he was asked about it in press conferences and responded honestly.
Escalating a divisive debate was “the wrong way for this nation to deal with its practices and with cultural elements that are important to both sides”, former Liberal Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt said
“When you start to politicise elements of Aboriginal affairs or cultural practices, then you start a process of allowing division to occur,” he said when asked about Mr Dutton’s critique.
Mr Albanese has also made a point of referring to the coalition’s preference deal with One Nation as Labor paints the opposition leader as a divisive figure.
Mr Dutton avoided answering why his party was preferencing One Nation second after former Liberal prime minister John Howard – who Mr Dutton has spoken of as a role model – put them last.
While the opposition leader has worked to shake off criticisms he’s borrowing policies from Donald Trump, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says Liberals have welcomed conservative ideas she was putting forward before the US president was elected.
“A lot of the sitting members within the Liberal Party agree with my policies, they know we’re on the same page,” she told AAP.
Support from right-wing minor parties could still help the coalition get over the line with preference flows to the opposition “dramatically higher” than the last election in 2022, Mr Morrison’s former media chief Andrew Carswell said.
A Roy Morgan poll showed Labor remained on track to form a majority government, leading 53 to 47 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.
The latest YouGov poll showed One Nation had a 10.5 per cent primary vote, more than double its 2022 result.
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