A byelection, triggered by Stuart Robert’s resignation, and following the damning findings of a royal commission into his contribution to a cruel and illegal debt recovery scheme, should prove an insurmountable obstacle to his party.

Peter Dutton knows it, and claims the poll on Saturday for Robert’s old seat of Fadden was timed to be held after the published results of the Robodebt royal commission to damage the Liberals’ candidate.

The Opposition Leader accused the Albanese government of “politicising the findings” – except the date was set by Speaker Milton Dick before Robert announced his surprise early resignation from Parliament.

The date was the earliest one possible after the school holidays and initially Dutton didn’t quibble with it. The usual principle is no one wants to leave constituents unrepresented for any longer than necessary.

The Opposition Leader’s objections betray his nervousness over the possible loss of the rock-solid Liberal seat or a significant erosion of Robert’s almost 11 per cent margin.

One of Labor’s most astute political operators in the days of the Hawke government, Graham Richardson, now a Sky News commentator, is predicting a tight result with Labor squeaking home.

Richardson’s optimism is not shared by senior government ministers.

Dutton is counting on Fadden to provide him with a circuit breaker from the anti-Morrison sentiment so damaging to the Liberals in the Aston byelection upset.

He desperately needs a win to convince his party room and organisation more generally that he can rally the tribe and halt the slide away from it.

Dutton says the voters in Fadden aren’t stupid enough to be swayed by the damning findings of the Robodebt commission.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton with Stuart Robert. Photo: Getty

A strange thing to say.

After all, the Liberals are looking to voters to stick with them although their previous member, Stuart Robert, knowingly misled them and the nation about the legality of a scheme motivated, according to commissioner Catherine Holmes by “venality, incompetence and cowardice”.

Labor has campaigned strongly on the message that Fadden deserves better from the Liberal National Party.

The Robodebt scheme unlawfully raised $1.76 billion in alleged debts against half a million Australians.

After extensive investigation and a forensic sifting of evidence,  commissioner Holmes described the scheme as a “crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal and it made many people feel like criminals”.

Dutton says he’s sorry about that, he “truly” is, but quickly goes on to remind us that it is every government’s duty to collect debts due to wrongly claimed payments.

He overlooks the fact that the government of which he was a prominent member did nothing to collect the whopping $24 billion in overpayments to businesses through the poorly designed JobKeeper scheme.

Dutton is definitely not abandoning the anti-welfare “easy populism” that commissioner Holmes noted politicians use, despite evidence that welfare fraud is “minuscule”.

The popularity of the stereotype of welfare fraud, according to witnesses at the commission, was a motivation for the Morrison government to persist with Robodebt, despite mounting criticism and concerns.

Dutton may have reason to believe this subterranean prejudice against welfare recipients is alive and well in Fadden.

Campaign targets

Labor’s pre-poll booth workers have found Robert’s notoriety is not the vote-changer logic would have you believe.

There is disgust at the former member and even anger but, frustratingly for Labor, relief that Robert has gone.

The LNP campaign has been hitting cost of living and crime, while the Indigenous Voice to Parliament has not featured at all.

The message it is urging voters to send Labor is equally addressed to the Palaszczuk state government as it is to Albanese’s in Canberra.

The Liberals are hoping the state government’s declining popularity will help them.

Labor’s state secretary Kate Flanders says there is a high level of voter disengagement in Fadden, with even younger voters in the mortgage belt end of the electorate still more comfortable than many elsewhere in the country.

Flanders is bracing for a correction in Fadden with the almost 4 per cent swing Labor’s candidate Letitia Del Fabbro gained last time, reversing.

There is no obvious, high-profile Teal-type candidate among the 13 vying for the seat.

One Nation is putting in a big effort, which could damage the Liberals’ primary vote but shore up their two-party preferred result.

The biggest long-term danger for Dutton could well be interpreting any win in Fadden as vindication for his hard-line conservatism that so far has seen the Coalition lose considerable ground in national opinion polls.