Since elected Liberal leader unopposed three years ago, Peter Dutton has done well to keep his team united, draw on his experience as a senior minister in public policy debates and not shift to the dead end of the populist right, and he has astutely tapped into economic grievances felt by low- and middle-income Australians.
But under the pressure of an election campaign, Dutton and his Coalition team have struggled. The lead they enjoyed in most opinion polls – and Dutton’s edge over Anthony Albanese on leadership attributes and as preferred PM – have vanished. Dutton does not look match fit for a campaign and, therefore, not ready for government. The Coalition has been beset by poor message discipline, half-baked policies, backflips and U-turns, ideological confusion and a weak team. The wink and nod to Donald Trump, always unpopular in Australia, has dogged its campaign. And at a time of global insecurity, voters often look to incumbents rather than change government. The odds were against Dutton returning the Coalition to power in a single term. All governments since 1949 have been re-elected, sometimes reluctantly. Dutton said he was following a one-election strategy to restore his team to the Treasury benches. Rather than downplay this expectation, he talked it up, raising expectations in Coalition ranks. And, for a while at least, it looked like he might achieve it.
When the Coalition previously went into opposition, in 2007, Liberal leader Brendan Nelson was under siege from Malcolm Turnbull, who would ring him regularly and urge him to resign. When Turnbull did get the leadership in 2008, the party was torn apart by climate change, and Tony Abbott ended up in the top job in 2009 – the fourth Liberal leader in two years.
Dutton brought stability and unity to the Liberal Party. As Australians experienced significant cost-of-living pressures with rising grocery prices, energy bills and fuel costs, and rents and interest rates skyrocketing, Dutton was effective in putting the blowtorch on the government. He played to his strengths on foreign policy and defence. But grievance is not enough.
Parties always go through soul-searching after suffering a big election defeat. In 2022, the Liberals lost seats held for generations to Labor, Greens and teals. It is critical not to heed the wrong lesson from an election.
Dutton was right when he said the Liberals were not a moderate or conservative party but a liberal party, forestalling any attempt to shift to the populist right. Elections are always won in the centre. Better to leave the fringes to Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer.
Polls showed most Australians did not support Trump’s re-election. This view has been vindicated by his chaotic, incoherent and unpredictable administration, which has trashed longstanding alliances, roiled markets with nonsensical tariffs, and supported Russia in its war against Ukraine, effectively abandoning a post-war security guarantee to Europe. Adoption of a Trump-inspired agenda is a bad idea.
Yet, Dutton tasked Jacinta Nampijinpa Price with a DOGE-style efficiency drive, promised to slash 41,000 public service jobs and spoke about ending “woke” agendas in schools. On the weekend, Nampijinpa Price said she wanted to “Make Australia Great Again”, and photos surfaced of her wearing a MAGA cap. This is toxic for mainstream voters.
Dutton’s campaign got off to a wobbly start when he revealed in an interview with me that he would live in Kirribilli House rather than The Lodge in the national capital. This gave an opening to Labor to accuse him of wanting to work from home with a harbour view. The Liberal leader also flagged a new referendum on Indigenous recognition and four-year terms if there was bipartisan support. He then backtracked.
The Coalition agenda is underwhelming. There is no chance nuclear power will win state and local government approval. It would never pass the Senate. The gas reservation policy does not guarantee increased supply. Allowing first-home buyers to deduct interest payments or draw down on super will be price-inflationary. And who could forget tax deductions for business lunches?
There has rarely been a campaign backflip more spectacular than when Dutton shelved forcing public servants to work from home. He hung a lantern over it too, and repeated it was a mistake again and again. After his budget reply speech, he ruled out income tax relief but did a U-turn at Sunday’s campaign launch and promised a cost-of-living tax offset for low- and middle-income earners.
Confusion on philosophy permeates the Coalition campaign. The nuclear plan is a big-government interventionist policy. Reducing fuel excise for a year is purely populist. Two “nation-building funds” are to be seeded with “windfall revenue” to spend on infrastructure. But what if there is no windfall revenue? What happened to windfall revenue paying down debt? Where is the serious policy work? Forget about fiscal consolidation or debt reduction. Tax reform is off the agenda. So is significant workplace relations change. No bold agenda for education. The Coalition supported Labor’s flagship health policies, its NDIS and aged-care reforms.
Another problem is Dutton’s shadow ministry, most with zero profile who struggle on policy detail. James Paterson, Sarah Henderson and Andrew Hastie are good performers. David Coleman in the key portfolio of foreign affairs is near invisible. Angus Taylor has a reputation for not putting in the hard work, and it shows. Having Barnaby Joyce on the frontbench is beyond parody.
Scott Morrison told me the Coalition cannot reclaim government without winning back seats lost to teals. Perhaps the test for Dutton should be regaining lost seats and lowering expectations of victory. Then the hard task of Liberal revival can begin with a larger partyroom, new frontbench, smarter policies and a more effective political strategy.
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