Dutton says he’s ‘on the cusp’ of power. Time for his close-up

Peter Dutton is ready for his close-up. But will enough Australians like what they see? The government, via its budget, has fired its last shot before the formal election campaign begins. Now the nation turns its lonely eyes to the opposition and its leader, who claimed in a post-budget interview that he was “on the cusp” of defeating the government and, by implication, being our new prime minister only a few weeks from now.

A bit of positive self-talk and a rev-up for colleagues who entertain doubts about the existence of an economic plan is understandable. So too for party workers who will be vital in the campaign. But it also invites voters to concentrate a bit harder and to ask if the Liberal leader, who’s done a bang-up job of exposing Anthony Albanese’s flaws, has done the hard yards on devising ways to specifically and meaningfully make their lives better.

Illustration by Dionne Gain

As Tuesday’s budget showed, progress in national politics in these times is measured in centimetres, not metres, much less kilometres. Exhibit A is the budget’s $17 billion in tax cuts: small and far from transformational emoluments spread as wide as possible to pick up some voters who’ve strayed from the herd, easy to understand and with a tinge of universalism. A predictable step for a Labor government but a footnote rather than a paragraph in the government’s story. Is this political? What budget delivered on the eve of an election campaign isn’t?

Critics understandably bemoan the government’s addiction to incrementalism. But have they been paying attention to the direction of electoral politics over the past 10 years? Nothing I’m seeing is dissuading me from the belief that the federal election in 2019 was one of the most substantial in recent times, setting a so-far unbroken template for the political contest.

Generally, change-of-government elections are seen as the important ones. But 2019’s was not a change election, it was the “let’s keep this government even though its purpose is no longer clear” election. The Labor opposition, led by Bill Shorten, ran on a full suite of reformist policies, including changes to tax breaks on property and shares. Scott Morrison ran on ridiculing electric cars and his love of caps. His government picked up extra seats; a majority of the public had a firm preference for a directionless, stunt-addicted government. Much has been said about how Albanese and the Labor Party concluded that ambitious policy was for mugs.

The Coalition drew a similar lesson. The story in the Liberal Party these days is that it was Morrison’s personal strangeness mixed with a mild “it’s time” vibe that lost them office in 2022. Thus under Dutton there’s been resistance to a substantial policy reset and a complete avoidance of internal debate about the party’s future direction. Dutton’s rhetoric has been sharper, more aggressive, and he has projected himself relentlessly as a “serious” person in contrast to Morrison, but otherwise it’s been steady as she goes.

Dutton prospered mightily by leading the No case at the Voice referendum. Advocating No at a referendum is not quite the easiest thing to do in Australian politics. The easiest thing is to argue the No case against a direct opponent who displays all the persuasive capabilities of a store window dummy, and that was Dutton’s happy lot during that campaign. He outpointed Albanese thoroughly that time. But a referendum, where just one policy question is at stake, is not the same as an election, where everything is at stake. Dutton has also had his share of campaign fails as leader, losing two byelections to Labor, including the remarkable result in Aston, which was the first time a government had picked up a seat from an opposition in a byelection since the 1920s.

For far too long, Albanese underestimated Dutton and over-estimated himself. But there are signs of a turnaround. Albanese’s lifetime existence as a politician is now at stake. To say the least, he is personally motivated in ways that he was not during the referendum, and that has recently caused him to be more focused and less self-indulgent. The acid will be on Albanese to keep it that way during the campaign.

Incumbency still counts for something. It worked for Morrison in 2019 and it’s now in Albanese’s hands. For Dutton to win, the public must believe in him. To achieve that, between now and election day he must attach a serious, well-thought-out policy framework to the single-minded, largely negative public persona that has served him well until recently. Not too grand, but it must make sense.

Little so far suggests that he and his ragtag frontbench have what it takes to do that. His budget reply on Thursday evening offers a start, but many weeks will follow during which voters will be looking and listening and weighing up whether he has the ability to navigate them through a world that the increasingly reckless Donald Trump treats as a plaything to be plundered.

Liberal colleagues who’ve lately been wondering out loud but anonymously where the economic policy of Dutton and his treasury spokesman Angus Taylor is, have only themselves to blame. This is the cost of allowing the craving for unity to develop into silence and inertia. The opposition’s entire political strategy has been to stay negative and to step lightly when it comes to offering a truly fresh vision for the country.

Dutton says he has a plan. His message until now is built on assurances that the Coalition is always a better economic manager and that he would get special deals from Trump (because he’s … Peter Dutton?) plus an expensive, nationalised nuclear energy policy that couldn’t produce benefits for at least 15 years. Add to that “will he or won’t he?” positions on immigration numbers, breaking up businesses in various industry sectors and a referendum on giving ministers the power to strip some Australians of their citizenship, and you have a hotchpotch of postures, not policies. Being good at smacking the other bloke has got him this far. It’s hard to see how it can take him all the way.

Shaun Carney is a regular columnist, an author and former associate editor of The Age.

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