Cameron Caldwell’s Facebook page is full of smiling endorsements from prominent Coalition MPs, shadow ministers and local identities from the Gold Coast.
But in the lead-up to Saturday’s byelection in the conservative stronghold of Fadden, one familiar face is conspicuously absent from Caldwell’s side on the campaign trail.
The retiring MP – the former Morrison government human services minister Stuart Robert – hasn’t spoken to Caldwell for weeks.
“He’s given me some time and space to be able to earn my place in the community,” Caldwell told the ABC last week.
Few people think there is any chance that Fadden, a northern Gold Coast seat held by the Liberal National party on a 10.6% margin, could change hands.
But the shadow campaign – the battle for national momentum between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton – remains a live contest, particularly in the shadow of the robodebt royal commission report, which included strong criticism of Robert.
Robert has maintained that he had tried to have robodebt shut down: “As the minister that worked hard to get the legal advice and close down the income compliance scheme I welcome the [royal commission] report and its sensible recommendations.”
But Dr Paul Williams, a political analyst at Griffith University, says robodebt is “alive and well” as an issue in Fadden.
“No one should be surprised if there is a slight swing to Labor, given that … Stuart Robert was named in the report and Labor is doing its best to remind voters that that’s the case,” Williams says.
That might be counteracted, Williams says, by declining public support for the voice referendum, a state Labor government facing political pressure, and cost-of-living concerns.
Labor has “nothing to lose and everything to gain” if it wins a swing, even a minor one, in Dutton’s home state.
“It’s not terminal but it could be quite injurious to Peter Dutton’s leadership if there’s a sizeable swing away from the LNP,” Williams says.
“Even a small swing to Labor is a moral victory. There’s more for the opposition to lose. It would be humiliating, and the bigger the swing, the bigger the humiliation.”
The federal education minister, Jason Clare, said last week the byelection was being held in “Peter Dutton’s back yard”. Labor has also said a 4% swing to the Coalition would be a “benchmark”. Both comments appear to downplay expectations but also ratchet up pressure on the opposition leader if he loses ground in his home state.
Williams says the Gold Coast is “not a conservative constituency”, despite being a Queensland Liberal stronghold.
“In terms of cultural or social policy, it’s not Gympie or Mount Isa or Charleville,” he says.
“It’s full of ‘small l’ liberal values. If there’s a swing against the LNP in Fadden, at least some of it will be a rejection of what people see as Peter Dutton’s arch conservatism, and a Liberal party that people see as spending too much time fighting cultural wars.”
Caldwell, the chair of the Gold Coast council’s planning committee, represents some of the most affluent suburbs in the area, around Paradise Point and the exclusive Sovereign Islands.
He won preselection ahead of the 2021 Queensland Australian of the Year, Dr Dinesh Palipana, who had been heavily backed by the increasingly influential moderate state MP, Sam O’Connor.
Caldwell had previously been slated to run for the state seat of Broadwater in 2012 but was dumped after revelations he attended a swinger’s club in 2009. At the time he said he had attended the club with his wife for “a social drink” but that there was not any impropriety.
He made it through the LNP’s vetting process before standing for preselection in Fadden.
Albanese has said Labor’s candidate, Letitia Del Fabbro, a nursing academic who ran against Robert in 2022, is at “long odds”.
“People will ask why is it that this money is having to be spent on this byelection with someone who just has made that resignation,” Albanese said last month. “We think this is unnecessary and shouldn’t have happened.”
And so the cloud left over the electorate by Robert’s disappearing act – he has not attended parliament since he announced his resignation, and has not appeared on the campaign trail – grows longer.
The findings of the robodebt royal commission have been heaped upon repeated controversies related to Robert’s expenses, his alleged private business dealings and claims made in parliament about his conduct as a minister. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Williams says voters tend to “get annoyed” when MPs resign midterm for reasons other than ill health.
“When [a resignation is] expedient, the electorate is very unforgiving. [The robodebt report] puts that right back in the frame.”
