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December 31, 2024
Peter Dutton has called on Anthony Albanese and Labor to show respect to his wife and avoid an election campaign dominated by personal attacks, after the Victorian ALP targeted him and Kirilly Dutton in a "gutter politics" social media post.
With Labor's polling share falling sharply in Victoria ahead of next year's federal election, the Victorian ALP manipulated a five-year-old newspaper report on the Duttons to attack them.
The post went up about 11am on Monday under the heading "We all know that one couple" and a secondary line stating "Justifying dating your new partner to your friends who don't like him" above a 2019 newspaper photo quoting Ms Dutton saying of her husband: ''He's not a monster.''
The original Queensland-based Sunday Mail newspaper front page was headlined "My Pete's no monster''.
With the election due to be called within months, and possibly as soon as the end of January, the Opposition Leader vowed his campaign would be clean and would not target family members such as the Prime Minister's fiancee Jodie Haydon.
"I can assure you: the Liberal Party I lead will not be targeting Jodie Haydon," the Opposition Leader said in a statement.
"I respect and like Jodie but she is not an elected official and will not be the subject of humiliation, attack ads or public smear by the Liberal Party.
"I would ask the PM to equally respect my wife."
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson, a senator from Victoria, called on Mr Albanese to take "this grubby meme down immediately". "This is just grubby gutter politics from a desperate government slipping in the polls," Mr Paterson told The Australian shortly after the post was published.
"We all know Labor's plan for the election next year is negative personal attacks on Peter Dutton; this is just a preview. When you run out of ideas to tackle the cost of living and have no second-term agenda, that's all that is left. He [the Prime Minister] should order the Labor Party to take this grubby meme down immediately."
The Melbourne-based state ALP headquarters is understood to have full responsibility for posting social media content.
The Victorian leadership has distanced itself from the post.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan's office declined to comment on Monday about the Facebook post on the party's account, which features prominent photos of her and Mr Albanese.
The latest three-month Newspoll, compiled for The Australian and reported last week, revealed the federal Coalition for the first time has drawn level with Labor in Victoria, where the state Labor government has lost ground heavily in polling, with the federal two-party-preferred support now split 50-50.
The three-month total represents an almost 5 per cent swing against the Albanese government compared with the 2022 election result.
Labor's primary vote has fallen to a new low of 30 per cent in Victoria. This represents a threepoint fall over the past three sample periods. Labor's Victorian primary vote is now lower than the 32 per cent support it has in NSW and only a point higher than its primary vote of 29 per cent in Queensland.
The poll also found Labor had lost ground across vital demographics, and lost its edge in NSW and Victoria.
The Australian also reported last week that while the two major parties were tied 50-50 nationally on a two-party-preferred basis in the three-month poll, the cost of living has pushed Labor down into second place among 35 to 49year-olds.