About 1500 childcare workers will be mobilised in the marginal Brisbane seat of Dickson in a bid to unseat Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, and a political expert predicts their protest over low pay will deliver the final blow to his political career.
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Griffith University political scientist Paul Williams says Mr Dutton, who holds the seat by a margin of just under 2 per cent and is already being targeted by GetUp! activists, will not survive being targeted by a second pressure group.
“I think Peter Dutton is gone. I don’t think anything can save him now except a Labor implosion,” Dr Williams said.
“He is particularly vulnerable because it’s a very marginal seat, and with very big pressure groups like GetUp! and now United Voice targeting him, I can’t see how he can survive that.”
Dr Williams said when unions targeted seats, they were often more effective than the Labor Party.
“Without a concerted union campaign, Labor would have got nowhere near as many seats as it did in the 2015 state election,” he said.
“It was union money, union organisation, union discipline and union messages entering the public consciousness - anti-Newman messages about the public service and employment - all of those things coming together.
“Never underestimate a union movement when it targets a particular seat.”
United Voice told Fairfax Media it had 1500 early childhood educators registered to vote in Dickson, and estimated about 6000 families had 9000 pre-school children in early childhood centres.
A senior source said: “These numbers have the potential to change the seat. Our educators have moved motions to put the coalition out of office at the next federal election."
“They’re mobilising and taking action against a government that’s not done anything for them," the source said.
“We have had previous rallies outside his office before.
“Educators will be protesting there again and will be in shopping centres and in highly visible areas of the electorate - basically sending him the message that in Dickson, early childhood educators are everywhere and will do what it takes.”
Dr Williams added that early childhood education was a “red-hot button issue” for voters in Dickson, and other marginal electorates.
“This number of early childhood educators [mobilising] is enough to see the seat lost,” he said.
“If all those people voted Liberal in 2016 all moved to Labor now, the seat would be lost just on them alone.”
Helen Gibbons, Assistant National Secretary of United Voice, said: “Educators are angry at the lack of a political response."
“Over the past week the government has shown it is more interested in protecting a handful of foreign au pairs than funding professional pay for 108,000 early childhood educators around the country," she said.
“Peter Dutton has been taking care of the visas of au pairs linked to well-connected families, and making substantial income through his family trust from two childcare centre investments in Dickson.
“Meanwhile, qualified educators are having to get by on as little as $22 an hour.
“He needs to know that educators have got key marginal seats like his are in their sights.
"In Dickson the difference between winning and losing is only about 2000 votes.
“Do the numbers in Dickson, and other marginal seats, and you realise educators have real political power.”
Comment was sought from Mr Dutton’s office, but no response was received by Fairfax Media's publication deadline.
