{"id":204768,"date":"2025-04-24T00:04:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T14:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=204768"},"modified":"2025-04-24T00:04:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T14:04:36","slug":"dutton-sniffs-upsets-in-melbournes-outer-suburbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=204768","title":{"rendered":"Dutton sniffs upsets in Melbourne\u2019s outer suburbs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ongoing anger over the cost of living and the performance of the state government are raising hopes within the Coalition that Labor-held outer suburban and regional seats in Victoria once deemed off limits could be snatched on election day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spent Monday in the outer-Melbourne seats of Dunkley and Gorton, adding to speculation his internal research was pointing to potential large swings.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-17.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-204769\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-17.jpeg 620w, https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-17-300x200.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Peter Dutton campaigning in Gorton on Monday.&nbsp;James Brickwood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>At the same time, the Nationals are focusing on Bendigo, another Labor stronghold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie was in Bendigo on Tuesday with the National and Liberal candidates. They promised to re-establish the Building Better Regions Fund, a $1.38 billion regional grants scheme that Labor abolished, claiming it was used to pork-barrel Nationals electorates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The auditor-general found it funnelled an extra $100 million to Nationals electorates against the advice of the Infrastructure Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>McKenzie said the fund would be worth much less this time \u2013 $250 million \u2013 and would be an ongoing open application program for two years, until the money was exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: AFR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The auditor-general found it funnelled an extra $100 million to Nationals electorates against the advice of the Infrastructure Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":204769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,35,1],"tags":[16164,993,8],"class_list":["post-204768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-breaking-news","category-uncategorized","tag-australia-votes-2025","tag-melbourne","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=204768"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204773,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204768\/revisions\/204773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/204769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}