Peter van Onselen: Regrets? Peter Dutton may have a few

Dutton twice challenged for the prime ministership and isn’t the PM. Picture: AAP

Why do politicians deny the undeniable? This morning on television Peter Dutton was asked if he had any regrets challenging Malcolm Turnbull. His first two words “no, none” were followed by claims that the government was cooked under Turnbull’s leadership, Morrison had already started to turn that around, and the new PM was making policy changes Dutton thought appropriate.

OK, let’s go through this tripe one by one.

No regrets, none? Dutton challenged for the prime ministership, twice, and isn’t the prime minister. He’s in the same role he was in before the public self-immolation, minus immigration responsibilities.

Unless he was Morrison’s stalking horse surely he has at least some regrets? For example, failing in his bid to seize the top job, or calling for a second spill too soon, in an unprecedented way, which allowed Morrison to come through the middle.

Throw in that Morrison was Turnbull’s pick as a blocking agent to Dutton and the reactionaries and you’d think there might be the odd regret.

Claims the government was cooked under Turnbull and Morrison has started to turn things around? Turnbull’s government trailed 49-51 per cent on the two party vote in four consecutive Newspolls. Morrison’s government trails 46-54 per cent, and the primary vote is now six points lower than it was at the 2016 election.

He’s turned things around all right – he’s turned around the recovery that was underway.

As for the claims of a new policy focus. Dutton wanted to take the GST off power bills as part of his play for the top job. Morrison has rejected that. Morrison continues to stand by the Paris agreement which Dutton and his supporters wanted Australia to pull out of. It’s nigh impossible to think of any significant change in policy direction Morrison has embarked on.

Finally, surely Dutton should at least regret the damage his play has done to the friends and colleagues who supported him. Some dumped from the ministry, others dumped from cabinet, all having had their credibility shredded. Mathias Cormann because of Dutton’s move found himself pledging support to three separate Liberal leaders or would be leaders in the case of Dutton in three days.

At the very least, shouldn’t Dutton regret what he did to the legacies of his mates if not his own legacy? I suspect he does, but his answer was just a classic case of a politicians first unthinking response to a question: deny, deny, deny.

Peter van Onselen is a professor at The University of Western Australia and Griffith University.