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Labor’s bone-crushing, once-in-a-century victory in Aston points to an existential crisis for Peter Dutton’s depleted and withered Liberal Party.
It is a shock result that defies conventional wisdom, and one that may well prove to be an inflection point for Australian conservative politics: one that forces the Liberals towards reinvention and renewal.
Anthony Albanese’s government is the first in more than 100 years to snatch a seat from the opposition in a by-election, in a mortgage-belt electorate that was supposedly susceptible to cost-of-living politicking, which the Dutton-led Opposition has relentlessly deployed.
The voters of Aston would not have missed their bills having steadily risen or how interest rates have gone on a Matterhorn climb, yet the electors didn't blame the Labor Government. In fact, they swung towards Albanese and his team.
Dutton’s tactics appear to have been repudiated, even though both sides in the contest were picking up household budget pressure as a concern. The Albanese honeymoon rolls on.
Similarly, the Liberals believed the purging of Scott Morrison from centre stage would have helped their cause. Again, not to be.
Morrison still resides on the backbench. He may have to be persuaded to stay a bit longer to avoid an Aston-like calamity in Cook. So, too, with Stuart Robert.
Victoria continues to be difficult terrain for the Liberal Party. Its state branch is dysfunctional, and the factional infighting has soiled its brand.
Many Liberals had hoped the election of its candidate, Roshena Campbell, an articulate young professional with a migrant background, would have spurred the party’s rehabilitation.
Instead, Mary Doyle’s election increases Albanese’s parliamentary majority, and the prime minister grows in stature and authority, ever more confident in his agenda on climate, energy and enshrining an Indigenous Voice in the constitution.
Dutton, who had framed Aston as a verdict on leadership, is humiliated by his own misguided confidence.
However, there is no real prospect of his position being challenged any time soon: His greatest ally is the fact that there is no other realistic contender.
The Liberals — a party of government, no less — cannot return to government, nationally, unless it wins seats like Aston, and does better, much better, in Victoria.
Within a decade, Melbourne will be the largest city in Australia. And, yet, the nearest bit of Liberal turf to the CBD is Bulleen, half an hour's drive to the east.
Between the GPO in Elizabeth St and the Heide Museum of Modern Art — where Sidney Nolan painted his Ned Kelly series — is a sea of red, green and teal.
Liberal blue is now found only in the Melbourne seats of Menzies, held by first-termer Keith Wolahan, and Deakin (Michael Sukkar).
Wolahan, considered one of the Liberals' brightest long-term prospects, says the task ahead for the party is one of re-establishing trust, proving character and displaying competence.
"We have to earn Melbourne's trust again," the barrister and former commando said.
"We have to prove that we hear what they are telling us. That their concerns are our concerns. That we are a party of character and competence."
Without wresting back inner-city seats from the teals, the Liberals will not return to government.
In this regard, the likes of Monique Ryan (Kooyong) and Zoe Daniel (Goldstein) have become Labor’s de facto guardians of power: The longer the teals hold the Liberals at bay, the longer Labor will have to make inroads in outer-metropolitan areas ceded to the Liberals in elections past.
Here is the existential crisis for the Liberal Party.
Its moderate wing was smashed by the rise of the teals in the 2022 election and now the aspirant voters in a seat like Aston have turned on it.
Dutton is caught in the blustery winds of political change, with a Liberal compass struggling to find safe haven.