CANDIDATES in the 2 March Dunkley by-election are in the home stretch of the campaign.
The by-election was triggered by the death of incumbent MP Peta Murphy in December. Both major parties announced their candidates in January – Jodie Belyea will seek to retain the seat for Labor, and Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy has been chosen to try and overcome a 6.3 percent margin to win it for the Liberals.
All candidates in the by-election have put cost of living at the forefront of the campaign. Labor has been speaking about its changes to stage three tax cuts, which will save most Dunkley residents hundreds of dollars each year. It has also been highlighting its recent establishment of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in Frankston and other healthcare initiatives.
The Liberals are making infrastructure spending promises in a bid to win the seat. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has promised $900 million towards the electrification and duplication of the Stony Point line from Frankston to Baxter. The money, which is well short of the $1.5 billion costed to complete the project in a 2019 business case, is dependent on the Coalition winning next year’s federal election.
Both major party leaders have been frequent fixtures around the electorate this year. On Sunday Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Frankston as part of a final push to retain the seat – he highlighted fee-free TAFE and stage three tax cuts as two of the federal government’s key policies heading into the by-election.
“Our commitment on fee-free TAFE – which was 180,000 people – has not only been met, it’s been exceeded, with 350,000 fee-fee TAFE places commencing last year and in addition to that another 300,000 starting this year. What that shows is that Labor’s measures to address cost of living pressures, whilst putting downward pressure on inflation, are having an impact,” he said. “This week we had the announcement that in 2023, real wages grew, and grew much faster than was predicted by Treasury. With that 4.2 per cent figure of wage growth (…) real wages are going up, inflation is going down. And as a result of our cost of living tax cuts, every single taxpayer in Dunkley will get a tax cut.”
Peter Dutton visited Frankston on 18 February to campaign with Conroy. He drew attention to Conroy’s work on council, saying “he’s a person who, as mayor, has the confidence of his colleagues. Over three years, in an unprecedented way, they voted him in because they know that he’s got the plan and he’s rolling it out for his local community – a 20-year vision that he’s been able to work up.”
“He’s put money into sporting clubs and into infrastructure to provide for local families, for people as they age in the community, those with special needs, because he’s prioritised them above the bureaucracy and above where money could be spent otherwise,” Dutton said.
The campaign has grown more heated in the last two weeks. Conservative lobby group Advance Australia ran a full page attack ad in the Herald Sun last week addressed towards Dunkley voters. The ad targeted Labor over the High Court’s 2023 ruling that indefinite detention is unlawful. The federal government was bound to follow that ruling.
Comments made by Belyea in the wake of the voice referendum have also received some media attention. She said that the outcome displayed “white privilege”.
Conroy’s employment history has been the subject of scrutiny on Sky News and in the Australian Financial Review. Conroy described himself as the “general manager of a multi-million dollar business” at age 24 in a 2021 interview with Irish publication Echo Live. The role he was describing was with the Richmond Union Bowling Club.
Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke has written to Frankston Council asking it to investigate the matter.
“Nathan Conroy isn’t dumb, he knows that telling people he was the manager of a sports club, serving beers and calling bingo with zero credentials didn’t sound as impressive as saying he was a 24-year-old general manager of a multi-million dollar business. He just didn’t expect to get caught,” Edbrooke said.
The Dunkley candidates in ballot order are Nathan Conroy (Liberal), Bronwyn Currie (Animal Justice), Chrysten Abraham (Libertarian), Reem Yunis (Victorian Socialists), Darren Bergwerf (Independent), Alex Breskin (Greens), Heath McKenzie (Australian Democrats), and Jodie Belyea (Labor).
