In Peter Dutton, has Labor not learnt from its mistakes with Abbott?

Earlier this week, Crikey‘s political editor Bernard Keane noted that in consistently denouncing Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as “nasty and divisive“, the Labor government was falling into the same trap it had against Tony Abbott: “obsessing about him and thinking if it can just find the right attack line, voters will realise how awful he is and flock back to them”.

So what happened last time Labor was up against someone widely regarded as an unelectable embarrassment and attempted to make a political strategy out of those characteristics?

2011

In March, after opposition leader Tony Abbott addresses an anti-carbon tax protest in front of a placard that describes her as Greens leader Bob Brown’s “bitch”, prime minister Julia Gillard calls Abbott a “bitter, hollow man. A man with no judgement who never gets the big calls right”:

I say to the leader of the opposition I believe Australians are increasingly disgusted with his negativity and revolted by his arrogance.

They see them on display every day. This puffed-up arrogance as he pursues his narrow political interests and goes about spreading fear and negativity in the community.

At the time, Gillard leads Abbott 50% to 31% as preferred prime minister, but the Coalition has a comfortable lead in a Nielsen poll of the two-party preferred vote. Regardless, Abbott’s personal approval rating continues to plummet throughout the year.

2012

Abbott blames “personal attacks on him” — including the allegation that, in the 1970s, he had punched a wall on either side of a female political opponent’s head — on Labor “dirt units”. Abbott’s wife Margie makes a rare public statement defending him against charges of sexism. Labor insists Abbott remains “fair game” ahead of the return to Parliament in October.

When Parliament does sit, Abbott moves to have speaker Peter Slipper removed, after his texts featuring Slipper’s misogynist language were reported across the media. Gillard responds with a speech that would become one of the defining memories of her time as prime minister, accusing Abbott of hypocrisy and quoting extensively from his history of sexist comments. Abbott’s personal rating takes another hit, but the Coalition stays ahead of Labor.

By November, Abbott’s approval rating is the lowest it has been since he became opposition leader. He blames Labor’s “endless personal attacks“.

2013

In June, Gillard argues that an Abbott government would “banish women’s voices from the core of our nation’s political life”. Later that month, fearing a landslide defeat to Abbott, the ALP replaces Gillard with former PM Kevin Rudd, returning him to the office Gillard had taken from him three years earlier. Bernard Keane noted at the time that the change meant:

Labor has a chance to prosecute the case against Tony Abbott without the incessant distraction that the leadership has proved since the first leak destabilised Gillard’s election campaign in July 2010. However, as the example of Gillard periodically demonstrated, even when Labor has had clear air in which to attack Abbott, it has failed to make a dent on his huge polling lead.

Rudd’s rating as preferred prime minister immediately rockets past Abbott’s, but the Coalition retains a lead on the two-party preferred basis. At the beginning of August, Rudd calls an election for September 7. As the campaign wears on and Rudd’s popularity drops — eventually to its lowest point during his time as Labor leader — Labor attacks on Abbott “ramp up”.

The Abbott-led Coalition wins comfortably. Pollster for the then Fairfax papers Nielsen’s John Stirton pointed out at the time that “Tony Abbott is the first unpopular opposition leader to win an election” in the history of the Fairfax Nielsen poll.

“The difference between him and other opposition leaders who’ve won is that they all had a clear net positive approval rating.”

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