Dutton makes clear he will not be small target at poll

As recent political history shows, the major parties have found success making the leap from opposition to government using very different methods. Kevin Rudd promised to be a financial conservative and govern as a “Howard-lite” to allay voter fears of change. In government he was anything but. Tony Abbott offered voters a stark choice: to dump Labor’s carbon tax and to restore fiscal prudence. He won in a landslide but lost support of colleagues when austerity turned from rhetoric to reality in the 2014 budget. Anthony Albanese repeated the Rudd small-target strategy and limped across the line for Labor. Voters now know that behind the promise of little change was an agenda for big-spending government in cahoots with the trade union movement. It includes an ambitious legislated target for climate change action it is struggling to implement as energy costs for consumers and business stay high. Mr Albanese promised to keep the Sovereign Borders policy but has been sucked into disaster through inattention on managing immigration numbers and keeping criminals locked up or sent home.

Peter Dutton has adopted the Abbott approach. He will campaign hard to repeal Labor’s climate change targets in favour of the official Paris Agreement requirement of net zero by 2050. In contrast to earlier iterations of conservative climate policy, Mr Dutton is proposing a zero-emissions pathway using gas as a transition fuel to nuclear power. As we report on Tuesday, he is being urged to double down with an ambitious David Cameron-inspired austerity program to slash ballooning structural deficits.

Such a task must be approached with caution and deft political management given the 2014 experience of Mr Abbott and his treasurer, Joe Hockey, and that of Queensland premier Campbell Newman, who managed to turn a landslide victory into a one-term government due in large measure to his tough budgetary approach.

Difficult as it might be, a plan to restore budget discipline is the right thing to do for Mr Dutton. Given the austerity already faced by households because of high interest rates, it is fair to assume many will support a government that is prepared to take its own medicine. The Covid-era view that government is responsible for everything must eventually be broken. Concern about immigration, law and order, and public safety has seen a shift in Newspoll that puts the two-party-preferred vote at 50-50. Labor is back to where it was in November in the wake of the failed voice referendum.

There is still time for things to turn around for Labor. The big issue is whether enough has been done to tame inflation so interest rates can start to come down before an election. Labor is hoping a scare campaign on nuclear will be enough to put voters off. But the polls show voter attitudes to nuclear are changing, while the cost and difficulty of Labor’s energy transition are becoming more clear.

Mr Dutton is doing the right thing by being prepared to have the fight on climate with an alternative plan. And he is looking for ways to burnish the Coalition’s traditional strength with voters of economic management. The government must also deal with the Greens, who have been unmasked for the anti-Semitic, anti-economy protest party they are. There is a strong moral justification for both major parties to reject any preference arrangements with the Greens, something that would hurt Labor more than the Coalition.

Mr Dutton can prosecute the reality that a weakened Labor government in coalition with the Greens after the next election would be an economic and public policy disaster for the country. He is putting in place the foundations for a campaign built on strength and difference.