In 126 words, Dutton made it clear only one thing was wrong with Australia

When Peter Dutton looks at this country after three years of Albanese’s Labor, he sees Australian carnage.

Within 126 words of his budget reply speech, the opposition leader had turned to anecdotes about all the things that were wrong with Australia because of Anthony Albanese.

He spoke of a 300 per cent power price rise, supermarket employees with a machete held to their throat, and a mum crying in a grocery store aisle because she simply can’t make ends meet.

That’s not to suggest that Dutton had made up any of these anecdotes – far from it. These are all serious issues which affected real people.

And they set the tone for a speech short on surprises but stark in its choices.

Seven times he intoned that, for Australians, “the choice is clear at the next election”.

He sought to portray himself as unflinching: “I will make the tough decisions – not shirk them.”

Much like Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ federal budget on Tuesday, the opposition leader’s budget reply speech contained few policy announcements that had not already been foreshadowed.

His boldest decision was possibly what he chose not to do.

Dutton’s decision to reject Labor’s tax cuts and instead offer cheaper petrol, sooner, could be the defining moment of the 2025 election campaign.

Labor brought out a surprise tax cut. The Coalition will promise to halve the fuel excise to 25.4¢ for one year, topped up with a gas reservation policy to drive down energy prices.

Anthony Albanese’s decision to call the election on Friday, revealed by this masthead on the final day of parliament, had already taken some of the wind out of Dutton’s sails when he delivered his final, scene-setting speech of the 47th parliament.

But Labor can’t believe the Coalition has promised to repeal income tax cuts and ministers are already shouting from the rooftops “if you want a tax cut, vote Labor”.

The Coalition is banking on an average $14 per tank reduction in petrol prices, for just one year, delivering a greater sugar hit that will trump Labor’s $5 coffee-a-week measure.

That’s because so many of the voters the Coalition is trying to win over live in the booming outer suburbs of our capital cities, where people often have to drive much further to get to and from work or school and so will therefore save even more because of a temporary cut to fuel excise.

Dutton labelled the Labor tax cut a “shameless election vote-buying exercise – not a plan for our country’s future”.

The same has been said about the fuel excise change, but Dutton’s calculation is that a slightly larger tax cut from the opposition (say 85¢ per day rather 70¢) was not big or different enough to be worth doing and a fuel excise will have a bigger impact.

Dutton’s speech on Thursday played some very dark notes. At one point he warned that a re-elected Albanese government “won’t just be another three bleak years. Setbacks will be set in stone. Our prosperity will be damaged for decades to come”.

But the message is being delivered at a time when inflation is moderating, interest rates have been cut once and more are in prospect, and when wages growth is finally starting to pick up.

Dutton is pitching this election as a referendum on whether a majority of voters feel as grim about Australia as he suggests. And this time, he doesn’t want the answer to be “no”.

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