Dutton just had his worst two weeks as leader. A later election can only help him

It could just be spin, bravado or foolish optimism – or perhaps even a recognition that there are many people right now with worse problems than political ones – but there seems to be no real sense of frustration at senior levels of the Albanese camp that a cyclone has interfered with its election plans.

Not that it is absolutely clear that Alfred did, in fact, push the election beyond April. Certainly, nobody will admit it. For a while, several dates apparently remained in contention – including February 22, March 1 and April 12 – but the chance of voting in May was never dismissed. Leases and accommodation bookings were extended to ensure it remained an option. Work has been done on both a budget and an economic statement, so that any date could work.

Illustration by Joe BenkeCredit:

But these are all just reasons not to be annoyed. Labor will go further, insisting that it is eager to go to May because it wants the economic debate a budget brings. And the economic situation may be better still by then, allowing the government to push its message that the economy has turned the corner (notwithstanding the debts and deficits likely to appear). There is a view, too, that Peter Dutton makes a meal of things when he’s on economic ground.

If you accept all that, then this may be one of those rare situations when both sides are equally happy. Given the way the past two weeks have gone – easily the worst of his term as leader – Dutton should be glad the campaign hasn’t started yet. Campaigns are a little like limited-season TV shows, with their own short narrative arcs and returning motifs. Something that happens early – like Anthony Albanese’s fumbling of the cash rate in 2022 – can come to dominate the weeks that follow.

Dutton has just had four of those events. The first, courtesy of Labor’s dirt unit, was around him buying bank shares at the height of the global financial crisis. Labor, in essence, made two arguments: an ugly insinuation about trading on information, and a moral argument about his apparent focus on making money during a crisis. At the time, the first seemed more damaging. As it turned out, it was the latter argument that resonated when it emerged, last week, that Dutton had left Queensland as the cyclone approached to attend a fundraiser at Justin Hemmes’ mansion.

This is not a hanging offence. The cyclone had not yet hit; Dutton is entitled to raise money. But as Dutton correctly intuited when talking about Albanese – the prime minister should be “governing not campaigning”, he said – people’s expectations of their leaders aren’t guided by purely practical considerations. There is a symbolic element at play. Albanese intuits this too, saying last week “my job is to represent Australians”. In not calling an election yesterday – prioritising the cyclone instead – he followed through. In flying to that fundraiser, Dutton forgot.

As we get closer to the campaign, there is a sense that this symbolic dimension of politics, with its ties (for better or worse) to patriotism, is becoming more central. I noted last Monday Albanese’s emphasis on the “Australianness” of Medicare. On Tuesday, he went further: “What we need is Australian policy for Australian conditions because we are unashamedly the best country on Earth, and we don’t need to borrow off anyone else.”

He did so while criticising the Coalition’s edict that public servants would have to stop working from home, which he said Dutton had copied from America. This policy was the third of the moments that, in a campaign, could have derailed the Coalition. Perhaps it seemed like a logical progression in Dutton’s attacks on the public service. The difficulty – aside from the Trump echo – is that it brought industrial relations into the spotlight, as well as the Coalition’s recent difficulties with female voters. Is this a debate Dutton wants?

The fourth moment also related to this issue of representing Australia. In recent weeks, Dutton had made progress in distancing himself from Donald Trump. After the dubious decision to call Trump a “big thinker”, Dutton expressed support for Ukraine, lamented the White House confrontation with Volodomyr Zelensky, and said he’d lobby Trump. But then Sky host Chris Kenny put to Dutton that he must be pleased Europe was stepping up on Ukraine. Dutton said he was but added, somewhat oddly, “and I think, frankly, President Trump can claim credit for that.”

This – like Dutton’s quip about governing, and his work-from-home policy – was unprompted. None were necessary; each, in a campaign, might have been poison.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in the first question time of the year last month.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

As I’ve pointed out before, one of Dutton’s significant political strengths has been that he learns from his mistakes. By avoiding difficult media appearances and policy launches, he has cost himself the chance to make mistakes and fix them. The benefit of a May election, for him, is that he has the chance to reset. Forced errors will happen; unforced errors cost elections.

There is a broader question here about what matters in campaigns these days. Does it matter, say, that Labor has already made its large health announcement – won’t it be forgotten by election day? Some believe the role of campaigns has shifted in recent years: in this view, campaign announcements don’t matter as much as they did. Those announcements were necessary to shape the narrative that commentators told. The media remains important, but less so: people get their news differently now, including from campaigners. For these reasons, Labor expects the impact of its Medicare money to last.

If all that is true, then it may not be the blessing it seems that Dutton made his mistakes early; this way Labor can campaign on them for longer. Dutton will have to hope Labor makes its own unforced errors. If the last campaign, when Albanese forgot the cash rate and the unemployment figure, is any sign, he won’t have to wait long. Unless, that is, the prime minister has learnt from his mistakes as well.

Sean Kelly is author of The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

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