The race is on for the Victorian federal seat of Aston, where a Liberal inner-city councillor and a Labor ex-trade union official compete to replace MP Alan Tudge.
The long-time Liberal seat in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs had a 7.3% swing towards Labor at last year’s federal election, leaving the two-party preferred margin at 2.8%.
Labor has the underdog status and would break a 100-year-old pattern of governments losing byelections if it captured the seat, according to election analyst and Crikey contributor William Bowe.
“No opposition has lost a byelection since 1920,” said Bowe, who runs the blog The Poll Bludger. “It would be a big deal if Labor won, but if they don’t, they can shrug it off. It’s a test for [Opposition Leader Peter] Dutton though — if he can’t win, they’ll be asking questions in the Liberal Party.”
Dutton and the Liberal candidate, City of Melbourne councillor Roshena Campbell, have sought to portray the byelection as a chance for the community to “send a message” to Anthony Albanese’s Labor government.
“They need a plan to get on top of the highest inflation in over 30 years and the highest interest rates in a decade … and they should not be able to take the outer east for granted,” Campbell wrote in an article in the Indian diaspora news publication Bharat Times.
Dutton, who has appeared in Aston four times during the campaign, repeated that message standing beside Campbell in mid-March. He brought up Labor’s federal campaign promise to reduce energy bills by $275 — a favourite “broken promise” attack line by the opposition.
“I think in Aston there is a great opportunity for the local community here to send a very strong message to the prime minister that they don’t like broken promises, and particularly when it comes to the cost-of-living pressures that they are having to bear in their own household budgets,” he said.
Albanese has been in Aston four times backing the Labor candidate, Mary Doyle, who also stood for the seat in the federal election.
Doyle has been pitched as a working-class battler who survived breast cancer and grew up in public housing, just like the prime minister.
She’s worked as a “key stakeholder relations specialist” at super fund Hesta since August, and before that spent more than two decades as a union organiser. Her very detailed LinkedIn profile includes part-time jobs going back to 1985, including four months as a “freelance” cleaner and a Coles checkout worker.
She told The Age she believes “we need more ordinary people in Parliament” and pointed to her experience balancing a household budget as a single mother.
Albanese said when launching her campaign: “Mary is a suburban mum who understands cost-of-living pressures, who understands the importance of Medicare as a cancer survivor, is someone who will be a strong advocate for this local community.”
Neither candidate actually lives in the electorate. Doyle has said she lives just 10 minutes away and is “from the outer-eastern suburbs”. Campbell has pledged to move to Aston from Brunswick if she’s elected.
The byelection is on Saturday.
I’m sure the Hun is even more ostentatiously balanced in its political coverage than usual, given that the LNP’s candidate’s husband is a journalist with News Corp. I suspect it’s asking serious questions of the Aston electorate why the LNP’s decade long history of negativity, dysfunction, ineptitude, sloth, hatred of the young and irrelevant culture wars should be rewarded. And further noting that the by-election was only caused by Tudge bailing from Parliament to try to avoid the consequences of his sludgy ministerial chair-warming.
And to keep his parliamentary “rewards” before the Robodebt inquiry ends.
It is enjoyable watching the factional infighting between the Shady Sukkar faction (in neighbouring Deakin) and Campbell play out in the pages of the Herald Sun. We still don’t know who leaked the “termite crusher” recordings to James Campbell in 2018.
Most voters are not so happy with future prospects over so many issues. A vote for anyone supporting Dutton is disgusting…he aided and abetted the decline of Australia, from Abbott to Morrison. Conservative Vandals, Huns, chronic liars and self deceivers are quite rotten.
Alan Tudge, and Michaelia Cash, cost the tax payer $650,000 in compensation for bullying allegations by his mistress, Rachelle Miller. More seriously he was a key player in robodebt. Yet he was re-elected, albeit with a reduced majority. I can’t see this community attracted to a Labor candidate, particularly a union organiser. But what do I know?
Sending a message is a great idea. If only the electorate would swing their votes to any other parties than the Coalition candidates & the ALP. Neither deserves any encouragement.
Not exactly a smorgasbord on offer. Liberal $1.65, Labor $2.30……………..
…………a Green and two weirdos round out the field, at odds of $51 apiece.
Still trying to find someone offering odds about “Informal” blitzing them all.
On June 9 2021 a massive storm caused unprecedented damage to western parts of the Aston electorate. The most damage was done in Kalorama which is just outside Bayswater and Boronia in the foothills. A 1000 homes impacted, 5000 properties flooded, 3000 homes without power or internet for a month (in the winter in the Dandenongs where it sometimes snows), countless cars damaged and written off and overall 34,000 insurance claims according to the Insurance Council of Australia who had described it as a catastrophe. A year later so many people were still unable to occupy their homes. Will the voters of Aston be wanting to vote in to federal government a notorious climate change denier so closely aligned with the Liberal media machinery who have stalled action for a couple of decades when it is well known that Ferntree Gully will be one of the most vulnerable places in the next few years?
Along with Kalorama, Mt Dandenong and Olinda were the hardest hit suburbs by that storm. The latter two are even closer to Bayswater and Boronia, but only geographically. The difference between the Dandenong Ranges and the nearby flatlands is stark. I really don’t think the constituents of Aston are any more concerned about climate change than the proverbial “average punter”.
In fact, the only part of thew Dandenong Ranges that is within Aston is a small part of Sassafras.
Or send Voldemort and his minions a message
With Tudge as the previous incumbent, you’d have to think it was a walk-up start……………………..