Dutton 2.0 debuts a softer side in appeal to young voters

With a New Year’s Day Instagram video that uses the word “together” eight times in less than a minute, Liberal leader Peter Dutton has debuted a softer social media persona ahead of the federal election.

A long-form podcast interview, a message of unity and a piece-to-camera policy pitch have dominated Dutton’s Instagram output over the past week, in a sign the opposition leader is using the summer period to reveal more of himself and appeal to young voters.

While the government has sought to paint Dutton as too divisive to lead Australia, the signs of a new strategy come as the opposition leader’s likeability rating has improved over the past 12 months, although it still sits at a net zero, according to this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor.

Marketer Toby Ralph, who has worked on more than 50 elections globally, said Dutton had frequently been “written off as unelectable because of his dispassionate hardman image”.

“But he’s been working hard to soften [that image], and it seems to be cutting through, apart from the policy own goal of nuclear … [it’s] an extraordinary change. He’s getting there.”

The Coalition has signed New Zealand-based creative agency Topham Guerin to work with Dutton in the lead-up to this year’s election, to be held by May.

Andrew Hughes, a lecturer in marketing at the Australian National University, said Dutton needed to boost his likeability before the election campaign began.

“People make their minds up early,” he said.

“Now is when you want to do your narrative building. It’s early research days as well. Part of the reason you’re doing anything on social right now is to see how it’s being perceived, and if you can tighten up any messaging.”

Professor Ariadne Vromen, also from ANU, said there had been a clear shift with Dutton’s most recent four Instagram posts, including a video from Friday outlining five key policies.

“The first one was more support services for mental health, the second is about housing. They are very deliberately going for young people’s vote,” Vromen said.

“When you look at earlier posts, a lot of them are very deliberately centring on the problems of the Albanese government, and focused directly on [Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese and [Treasurer Jim] Chalmers.

“But as we shift into Christmas, [the] new year, and election mode, his messaging is changing. It’s really about: let’s do all this stuff together. The new message is unity ... He’s moving from deliberate attacks to try and present this positive, unifying message about the future.”

Hughes said Dutton’s team was doing a “slow build” to introduce a softer side to young voters – such as a podcast interview last week with Olympic diver Sam Fricker, who has 5.8 million YouTube subscribers – rather than leaving it until the last minute when he risked appearing cynical or vote-grabbing.

“Now it’s summer, it’s quiet, and we have downtime. Using social media storytelling and doing it consistently for the next few weeks is going to be important … He went up to net zero in the likeability factor [from minus 12 a year ago], which shows they’re on the right path.”

In the podcast, Dutton talks about young people’s mental health, jokes about belly-flopping into the pool, discusses being brought up “with a focus on the importance of family”, and explains how being a police officer led to his interest in politics.

Hughes said it allowed Dutton to open up in a “natural way”.

“I don’t think they’re trying to win over everyone. The tactic is to get us to like him while understanding that not all of us are going to change our minds overnight.

“In an election this close, 2, 3 or 4 per cent of people changing their mind doesn’t sound like much but could be enough to pick up seats.”

Vromen said a podcast interview in which a “young, blond man asks personal questions about his childhood and motivations” was another sign the Coalition was trying to shift its vote generationally.

“As we saw in the US election, there was a real gender split in young people’s vote, and maybe what his polling is showing is he can really target young men in Australia to get their vote,” she said.

“We know generally from polling that the most important issues to young people are about mental health, housing, climate change.”

She noted that Dutton’s latest video named nuclear as the last of five policies, while framing it as a response to climate change.

Vromen said Dutton’s focus on togetherness in his New Year’s Day video contrasted with Labor’s attempt to paint him as divisive, and drew from the Coalition’s success in campaigning against the Voice referendum on the grounds it would split the community.

But she was not convinced it would be compelling.

“[His videos] are still using scare-campaign tactics about immigration and protest. It’s very hard to use both negative scare campaign messaging and positive messaging about unity, hope and community,” she said.

“They’re having a bet both ways, but that can be confusing to people.”

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