CAMERON MILNER: The five seats that could make Peter Dutton the next prime minister

Everyone but Albo knows Labor at best will govern in minority after the next Federal election.

Increasingly a minority Dutton government is also being contemplated, with just five seats standing between Dutton and the prime ministership.

Labor is so on the nose in Victoria and has made little to no headway in Queensland. NSW, WA and Tasmania alone have 10 seats at risk of being lost directly back to the Liberals.

For all of Albo’s “optimism” in the face of a cost-of-living crisis and an anti-Semitism crisis, polls are never that wrong and they all say Labor is doing much worse than they did in 2022.

Labor’s primary is down, the Liberals are sitting considerably higher and the Greens vote is also down, starving Labor MPs of vital preferences. Even the Guardian carried a poll showing Albanese as deeply “out of touch”.

Voters could well go to bed on election night having voted for Albo and wake up with Adam Bandt and a bunch of teals, like some latter day Age of Aquarius festival from the swinging 60s. It doesn’t bear contemplation as an option for stable and strong government.

For every wishful moment spent by an Albanista yearning to see Albo engage in “group government”, Dutton’s march back to power gains momentum. Time and Albanese’s continued presence are Dutton’s best friends.

Albanese could’ve gone to the polls last year. He could have called it before Parliament returned, but his notorious procrastination has hobbled his re-election campaign.

The Prime Minister will attempt to avoid a March 25 Federal Budget so voters don’t see all the red ink and Treasury forecasts for increased inflation from July 1 when all the artificial subsidies end.

He is hanging out for RBA governor Michele Bullock, to repay the favour of her appointment by his Government with a rate cut on February 18 to fire the starters gun.

Bullock’s rate cut will be one of most partisan decisions ever by the RBA as even the US Federal Reserve has held rates under extraordinary political pressure from President Trump.

Regardless, a small cut will just remind voters of the other 11 rate rises delivered under Albanese. The rate of inflation has slowed, but everything still costs more than it did a year ago. Despite the desperate Labor ad, voters know they are worse off under Albo than they were three years ago.

The calculus for Dutton to form minority government is based on counting Bob Katter, Dai Le and Rebecca Sharkey as supporters along with the Liberal scion Kate Chaney who is tipped to hold Curtin despite being a nominal teal.

What is more tantalising though is the Liberals’ stretch goal of governing in their own right.

To do that would require either winning back all the teal seats and then the Labor marginals, but given Monique Ryan, Allegra Spender and Helen Haines are likely to hold, this path is fraught with risk.

That’s why the Liberals are instead hunting for votes in seats once thought of by their complacent members as Labor’s heartland.

There are five seats that will tell if Dutton can emulate Joseph “Honest Joe” Lyons’ feat of defeating a first term Scullin government: Brisbane, Leichhardt, Parramatta, Reid and Hawke.

Leichhardt, which has Cairns at its centre, has been on Labor’s target list forever but is held for the Liberals by retiring member, Warren Entsch. Entsch is a quintessential bloke from FNQ and carries a huge personal vote.

Dutton can’t afford to lose any seats and Leichhardt is a crucial one to watch on election night. If it flips to Labor, it increases Labor’s chance of holding onto Government.

The seat of Brisbane is currently held by the Greens. Its former Liberal member, Trevor Evans, will try to win it back for the Coalition. Labor is also chasing the seat in a genuine three-way tussle. If Dutton can eke out just a 3.7 per cent swing, this seat goes from keeping Albanese Prime Minister to giving Dutton one hand on the prize.

The next two seats are the neighbouring electorates of Parramatta and Reid in Sydney’s middle west.

Both are held by reasonable margins by two of Labor’s highest profile and highest potential new MPs — Andrew Charlton and Sally Sitou.

Charlton could well succeed Jim Chalmers as PM one day but sits on just a 3.7 per cent margin with an aspirational electorate with a significant Indian community. Charlton is a latter day Malcolm Turnbull, having entered Parliament as a multi-millionaire, but he’s also playing the local NIMBY politics hard by opposing his close mate NSW Premier Chris Minns’ plan to increase urban density.

Tellingly, Albanese visited the electorate just last week, a sure sign to any local MP their seat is on a target list and the polling is heading south.

Reid has improved since the last election and Sally Sitou has proven herself a great local campaigner and a valued member of the Labor team. If she holds her seat she’ll be in the ministry soon enough. Reid sits at 5.2 per cent but if it falls, Dutton will be PM.

Critically, both Parramatta and Reid have been held by the Liberals previously when they’ve formed government.

The Liberals have always managed to shoot themselves in both feet in Victoria, but 2025 shapes as a watershed moment for the party. New State leader Brad Battin is scoring well and the State once known as the Socialist Republic of Danandrewstan now lays in ruins.

If the Liberals double down they can deliver the obvious seats — Aston, Bruce, McEwen, Chisholm — while Tim Wilson regains Goldstein.

Also for the taking by the Libs is Sam Rae’s seat of Hawke. Labor suffered huge swings against the self-described factional warlord at the State election and even the last Federal election saw an almost 8 per cent primary swing against the ALP.

The seat is full of tradies and families who commute to work who’ve been crushed by Albanese’s removal from their cost-of-living crisis. Couple that with the fact the guy spends more time playing factional games and blow drying his hair than working hard locally and his seat could well seal the deal for Dutton.

While everyone watches the marginals, it is seats like these that could well surprise at the upcoming poll and decide whether its weak Albo or a strong Dutton that is our next PM.