Harry Dutton’s big win a sobering lesson for Victorian Liberals who think they might do a Bradbury

On ya ’Arry. Who would have predicted that at the halfway point of this federal election campaign, Peter Dutton’s son Harry would emerge as the biggest winner?

Whoever leads Australia’s next government, the lad’s played a blinder. Having begun the campaign as a 20-year-old apprentice chippy with distant dreams of one day having enough money for a house deposit, Harry Dutton now has an iron clad, “read my lips”, live-on TV promise from his old man to help him buy his first place.

Peter Dutton and his son Harry.Credit: James Brickwood

Harry Dutton’s unexpected cameo and the pesky questions it raised for his dad shows the perils of bring-your-kids-to-work days and the unpredictable nature of election campaigns.

It is also what happens when opposition parties enter an election period undercooked on policy and unclear about the argument they are trying to make.

Putting up the son of a career parliamentarian to cry poor about house prices, let alone the son of a long-serving government minister and opposition leader who has amassed a well-documented personal fortune through property investments, makes little to no sense.

The most generous thing that can be said is that no one thought it through. Unless something dramatic happens to change the course of this federal election campaign, this may become the working title for the inevitable Liberal Party review.

In the meantime, there is one Liberal leader who shouldn’t need to wait for the findings.

Brad Battin, the affable copper turned baker turned Victorian opposition leader trying to turf out Labor after 11 years in government, may be tempted to believe that if he can just hold together his fractious party room long enough, he’ll skate Bradbury-style into the top job in November 2026.

Anyone who can read an opinion poll can see that Premier Jacinta Allan is in a world of hurt. Her approval rating in last week’s survey of voters conducted by Redbridge is below the levels recorded by Scott Morrison in his political death throes.

At this point, Bill Hayden’s proverbial drover’s dog would romp it in at a state election in Victoria.

If Battin does believe any of this, his chances are already shot.

Brad Battin, who shadowed the federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton during an election campaign stop in Caulfield last week, will need to learn from his federal counterpart’s mistakes.Credit: James Brickwood

The same survey that scored Allan with an approval rating of minus 35 also found that 9 per cent of voters were unsure of Battin and 30 per cent had no idea who he was. This is a sobering result for someone who has spent the past decade in public office and whose face is on the TV news most nights.

Unless Battin colours in the details of his character, political ethos and plans for Victoria’s future well ahead of the state election, Labor’s campaign machine will happily oblige. The machine did this with ruthless effect in 2022 after it detected electorate uncertainty about former Liberal leader Matthew Guy.

The challenge before Battin is not only to explain to voters who he is and what he stands for, but to lay down the kind of foundational policies missing from the federal Coalition’s pitch to voters.

So far, it is clear the Liberals under Battin stand for bail laws tougher-than-the-other-lot’s bail laws, reviewing the Suburban Rail Loop, removing prohibitions on onshore gas exploration and gas connections in newly built homes and ... what else?

What is the opposition’s plan to turn around the state’s parlous fiscal situation and start paying down its debt? How can it do this while easing Victoria’s stifling tax burden on business and property transactions?

Will any gas Victoria extracts from onshore deposits be exported or does Battin support a version of Dutton’s gas reservation scheme to preserve some supply for domestic use?

Does Battin intend to keep all the policies of his predecessor, John Pesutto, or have some quietly been ditched?

There is little evidence that a party which has malingered in opposition for all but four years this century is ready to start making a compelling case for change.

Instead, we have the latest Chronicles of Moira, where Liberal backbencher Moira Deeming appears intent on bankrupting Pesutto following her successful defamation case against the former leader.

This is a complex dispute well canvassed in previous reports by my colleague, Rachel Eddie. For the sake of brevity, it centres on about $2 million in legal costs that Deeming could have chosen not to pay back to a deep-pocketed donor but, instead, is seeking to add to Pesutto’s tab.

When asked about the situation this week, Battin said while costs were being determined by the court, he would not get involved in the dispute beyond offering “welfare” support to both colleagues.

This is not a tenable position. Battin staked his leadership, in part, on bringing Deeming back into the party. That makes him responsible for anything and anyone she blows up from here.

Pesutto resigned the leadership intending to focus his energies as a backbencher on long-term policy work. One of his pet projects is to improve the integrity of the state budget. He can’t bring a clear head to the state’s financial problems when he is immersed in his own.

Battin needs to get this sorted quickly and then, get down to serious work. If the Victorian opposition is planning to wait for next year’s election campaign period for their big reveal, they are sillier than whoever plonked Harry Dutton in front of a TV camera.

Chip Le Grand is state political editor.

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