Wipeout beckons for Liberals after Aston byelection and the problem is not just Peter Dutton | Paul Karp

But Labor has won a good swing to it in a Liberal heartland seat, despite the fact that no government in more than 100 years has won a seat off the opposition at a byelection.

Labor believes its early strong lead was built on the back of Chinese Australians, who punished the Liberal party at the 2022 election but held up reasonably well for Tudge, a former minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs.

And how did Labor seek to persuade these voters? Campaign posters with Campbell pictured alongside the former prime minister Scott Morrison and current leader, Dutton.

Much of the focus at the 2022 election was on the clutch of six inner-city seats the Liberals lost to teal independents. But it also lost two to the Greens in Brisbane, and traditional Liberal seats to Labor in Melbourne (Higgins) and Sydney (Bennelong).

The party, which holds no seats bordering Sydney harbour, now holds just two in Melbourne, both under threat.

But out of Liberal disaster, there is also an opportunity. Better to get a shock to the system now while there is a year or two still in this term of parliament for the party to correct course.

In parliament Albanese has hammered the Liberal party for opposing jobs to be created by the national reconstruction fund, the housing Australia future fund, the emissions reduction targets and the safeguard mechanism to achieve them. The Coalition even voted against power price relief.

On the Indigenous voice, Labor begged for bipartisanship by arguing that it was an opportunity to elevate both Albanese and Dutton in a moment of national unity.

Instead, Dutton has conducted a shadow campaign nitpicking about detail and driving the vote down through cheap scares about legal consequences.

Dutton won the leadership uncontested because the other contender, Josh Frydenberg, was taken out by voters.

His leadership seemed secure because he is the most senior conservative in a party with a much-reduced moderate faction.

Labor has succeeded in turning the byelection into a referendum on Dutton, not on Albanese.

Metro areas have now swung away from the Liberals at too many elections, state and federal, to write off the result like that.

They need to listen to the issues of concern to the seats they need to win, not just the rump they still hold in Queensland and the regions. Sensible emissions reduction policy and a rejection of culture war issues must be top of the list.

On the ABC, Wolahan extended a hand to regional members to meet with metro MPs to reconsider how to win.

After a result this poor, the conversation must encompass not just fiddling around the edges of one or two issues, it must include the leadership as well.