‘Everything is so expensive’: tax cuts, cost of living and the battle to win the Dunkley byelection

The Liberal candidate, Nathan Conroy, campaigns in Frankston on the first day of pre-polling in the Dunkley byelection. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian

It’s noon in Frankston and the harsh summer sun is beating down on volunteers handing out how-to-vote cards outside the local football club for next Saturday’s Dunkley byelection.

Some are slathered in sunscreen and zinc and wearing wide-brimmed hats. Others are trying to find a spot in the limited shade. But all are prepared for a lunchtime rush – one that never comes.

On the first afternoon of early voting in this bayside electorate, about 40km south-east of Melbourne, only a handful of locals are casting their vote in the federal byelection.

Among them is Peter, who walks briskly past the gauntlet without grabbing a how-to-vote card. Head down, he barely registers the Liberal candidate, local mayor Nathan Conroy, who stands by the gate to the football club greeting voters on their way in.

“I’ve always voted Liberal. Just running a small business, it’s always been better for me to vote for them,” the glazier tells Guardian Australia on the way out.

“I just wanted to get it out of the way,” he continues as he strides towards the car park.

The same sentiment is expressed by voters at the pre-poll at the Lyrebird community centre in Carrum Downs, where several people say they hadn’t realised there was a byelection until they saw the centre.

More than just ‘what’s good for me’

Stretching from the mortgage belt areas of Carrum Downs and Sandhurst in the north to Mount Eliza in the south – where homes along the beachside “Golden Mile” start about $3.5m – and with Frankston at its centre, the electorate of Dunkley doesn’t fit neatly into either major party’s core voter base.

Unlike the other outer suburban seats in Melbourne, which are experiencing huge population growth and increasing cultural diversity, Dunkley grew by only 30,000 people between the 2001 and 2021 censuses.

It is also incredibly homogenous, with 74% of the electorate born in Australia and two-thirds nominating English, Irish or Scottish ancestry as part of their ethnicity. And it skews older. In Dunkley, the median age in 2021 was 40, compared with the Melbourne average of 37.

Tony Barry, a former senior Liberal staffer who is now with political consultancy RedBridge, says that, on paper, Dunkley and the state seats within it should be a Coalition “heartland”.

But he says another key demographic is changing this. According the 2021 census, the majority (50%) of the electorate reported it did not have a religion.

“The broader problem for the Coalition is that in all our polling, this fastest growing cohort is currently mostly supporting centre-left parties and candidates,” Barry says.

“Indeed, it is now becoming a lead indicator of voting intention in Australian politics.”

The seat itself has changed hands several times since it was created in the mid-1980s. Only two MPs have managed to secure it for several terms – former Liberal minister Bruce Billson, and Labor’s Peta Murphy, who increased her margin from 2.7% in 2019 to 6.3% in 2022.

There [are] a lot of people that live past here and you shouldn’t just care about Frankston.

Kim, Dunkley voter

Murphy’s death from cancer shortly before Christmas trigged the 2 March byelection.

At the Carrum Downs early voting centre, self-described swinging voter Bill says he’s “annoyed at the waste of time and resources” going into the byelection.

“When a sitting member dies during the term, they should be replaced by the party,” the retiree says. “They should do what is done in the Senate, I don’t know why it’s not the same for a lower house MP.”

While he won’t say who he voted for, another voter, Jacinta, is more than happy to.

“I voted for Jodie [Belyea, the Labor candidate]. I was a huge fan of Peta’s and I know she was the one that put in a good word for Jodie to be the candidate,” she says.

“Peta is the only politician that I’ve ever shed a tear over. She was beautiful. She was so kind, she was just so passionate and just a seriously good person.”

Jacinta says while cost of living was a “huge” issue in the electorate, she was also concerned about the rhetoric surrounding the boat arrival of a group of refugees in remote Western Australia.

“The Liberals speak about it, it feels like they just want to be divisive,” Jacinta says. “All they do is say, ‘No, no, no, no, no. Everything’s bad. Everything’s terrible.’ They did the same with the referendum.

“I want some positivity and that was Peta. Jodie seems the same way.”

Kim, a swinging voter, says she liked Murphy but won’t be voting for Belyea, due to Labor’s opposition to the Liberals’ $900m proposal for a Frankston-Baxter rail line extension.

“There [are] a lot of people that live past here and you shouldn’t just care about Frankston. I think politics is more than just ‘what’s good for me’, it’s what’s good for everyone else,” Kim says.

Cost of living and taxes

A retired Frankston couple, who have lived in the suburb for four decades but did not wish to be named, say they put Conroy on the top of their ballots.

“Nathan’s been mayor three times, he’s got the experience, he knows what’s happening in Frankston,” the husband says.

His wife is more blunt: “I’m not Liberal or Labor but I hate the prime minister. He’s a liar and he needs to go.”

It’s a reference to the stage-three tax cuts, overhauled by the government to shift more of the benefit to low- and middle-income earners. According to Labor’s calculations, 87% of working people in Dunkley will be better off under the changes.

Though the Coalition supported the changes, they have sought to paint Anthony Albanese as a liar after he reneged on his commitment before the 2022 election not to alter the tax cuts.

But on the whole, Labor’s gamble appears to have paid off. Though cost of living still comes up most frequently as the main issue of concern, few voters Guardian Australia speaks to blame the Labor government.

Many, however, want more certainty for the future.

Maureen and Wally won’t reveal who they voted for but their main concern is their seven grandchildren, all aged under 10. “Prices keep going up, it’s going to be so hard for them to be able to buy a home,” Wally says.

“The debt in this state is so high, that is going to be a problem too.”

Pierino and Silvana Cheles have seven grandchildren they also worry about.

“Everything is so expensive. Mortgages, rents, groceries, schools. My older grandsons are at private high schools, their parents are paying $12,000 a year. Why? Why isn’t education cheaper?” Pierino says.

Silvana says her grandchildren won’t have the same opportunities as they did when they first came to Australia as young adults. “With $50 a week, we’d put $25 away for rent and the rest got us by. It only took two years to save to buy a house. We paid it off very quickly. You can’t do that now,” she says.