EDITORIAL: Politics turns personal as Federal election campaign revs up

According to Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is “cold-hearted, mean spirited and just plain nasty”.

Mr Dutton reckons the Prime Minister is the “weakest” to ever lead our nation.

And the campaign hasn’t even officially started yet.

Mr Dutton was first to land his blow. Speaking at a quasi-campaign launch in Melbourne on Sunday, he said Australia faced a “Sliding Doors moment”: more economic backsliding under Labor, or a return to smaller, less intrusive government and increased productivity under the Coalition.

“A returned Labor government — in majority or minority — will see setbacks set in stone,” he said.

“A newly elected Coalition government is a last chance to reverse the decline.”

There’s shade of MAGA in Mr Dutton’s campaign slogan “Get Australia Back on Track”, which seeks to tap into the population’s nostalgic yearning for better days, when a block of supermarket cheddar cheese didn’t cost you $10.

And like Donald Trump, he’s not afraid to take his attacks personal.

Nor is Mr Albanese.

“Peter Dutton has built a career on dividing people. He’s built a career on targeting people, particularly people who are vulnerable,” he said on Monday in response to the Opposition Leader’s criticism of him.

Game on.

It was the most robust start to an election campaign since Mark Latham’s over-enthusiastic handshake with John Howard in 2004.

It wasn’t all mud-slinging and name-calling.

Both leaders have also taken the opportunity to make their pitch to voters.

While Mr Dutton wants to get the nation “back on track”, Labor wants to get on with “building Australia’s future”.

On Monday, Mr Albanese committed an additional $3 billion in Federal funding to “finish” the National Broadband Network, boosting internet speeds for hundreds of thousands of customers.

After re-affirming his party’s commitment to its nuclear power plan on Sunday, Mr Dutton stoked an old fire by declaring a Coalition government would mandate councils hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day — and he’d do so within its first 100 days as a “sign of pride and nationalism”.

In 2022, the Federal Government changed the law to allow councils to conduct citizenship ceremonies three days before or after Australia Day, a move Mr Dutton said signalled that our national day was “something to be ashamed of”.

“I want us as a population to be united. I want us not to be divided, but I want us to stand up for what we believe in. And we will do that again, and we will have pride again in our country, and we’ll be our best country if we stand together,” Mr Dutton said.

That was a fight Mr Albanese wasn’t buying into. Instead, he said he’d be spending January 26 at the Australian of the Year awards, and invited Mr Dutton to join him.

As they say, it pays to keep your enemies close.