What you said about Peter Dutton losing seat of Dickson in federal election

Did nerves get the better of Peter Dutton’s election campaign? Or just poor policy? Or was it Labor? HAVE YOUR SAY

Did nerves get the better of Peter Dutton’s election campaign? Or just poor policy? Or was it Labor?

Debate is raging after it was revealed some of the Opposition Leader’s closest staff knew how dire the polls were in his Queensland seat of Dickson but kept the results because they feared how he would react.

Political reporter James Campbell wrote Coalition insiders said Dutton was at his best when he was confident and alerting him to the polls would have made him nervous.

“Instead of polling Dickson the decision was made to ‘go full tilt’ in the ultra-marginal seat as though Dutton was in trouble, which of course it turned out he was,” Campbell wrote.

“The insider also shone a light on the internal working of the campaign which many have said is the Coalition’s worst ever, saying the Opposition Leader wanted to control every aspect of it.”

Those fears turned to reality as Labor swept to election glory and the Coalition has been left scrambling to find a new leader.

“As bizarre as it might sound the reason the people in Coalition Campaign Headquarters had no idea how much danger they were in their own seats was not because their polling was wrong – though it was – but because they never polled them in the campaign,” Campbell wrote.

Regardless, readers have piled into the debate about what went wrong – did Labor get things very right?

Or was Dutton always out of his depth?

See what you had to say below and join the conversation >>>

WHAT YOU SAID

It was always doomed

Bystander😎

Well, a Victorian Liberal MP would know all about running an incompetent and lazy campaign. They’ve been doing it for years.

Darren

None of this was helped by the disconnect between Mr Dutton’s chief of staff, his media manager and Coalition Campaign HQ.

Harry

That tells you two things. If he won, then fine. If he didn’t the party wanted him gone. Very surgical by the LNP machine … but of course judging on the campaign it may have just been incompetence

Heather

Pathetic to have someone as conflicted as fragile as Dutton managing the campaign, like a fule.

Warren Brown’s latest cartoon.

LNP got it wrong

Tru Conservative

Nothing could have saved Dutton, they had the wrong candidate for the times. He kept banging on about woke issues which only a few keyboard warriors care about, while people drifted en masse to Labor over cost of living.

Ketut

The LNP have failed Australia, down to 39 seats in Canberra, is appalling

Doug

People are saying we all got blind sided by the ALP and we are stupid to re-elect the ALP. I’ve only got 1 thing to say and that is I don’t believe that so many of us are stupid. The people saying this need to put a mirror at the end of their bed and wake up to themselves

Proud Aussie

The one positive I take from Labor’s win is it will give them a much longer rope to hang themselves with. Labor did not win … the Liberal party threw it away.

Labor owned them

Winnie Xi Pooh

This is what happens when you let your opponent frame the issues in a debate.

TERESA

From Day One of the campaign, Albo had the air of a front runner while Dutton initially had the air of the chaser but later his nervousness and desperation was there for all to see.

Dugeld

Three months ago Albanese was toast. Everyone knew what a weak, untrustworthy person he was and who little connection with the Australian household. Dutton was the exact opposite- trustworthy, connected, strong. But run a slick circus campaign, dress up the grinning clown and spend oodles on the same dumb misinformation and Australians go this clown is now good

Dan

What drivel. stop making excuses, the Libs need to reset everything don’t just blame the campaign or they’ll get smashed again in 3 years

Peter Dutton casts his vote with his family at the Albany Creek State School in the seat of Dickson. Picture: Adam Head / NewsWire

Dutton should have won

Ted

Dutton was the better ‘man’ for the job. We wish him well

Wayne

All Parties had poor messages. Too much negativity, high spending plans and blaming others for messes. Positive messages and direction needed.

Deb

It looks like they’re making Dutton the fall guy. I don’t believe for one second that Dutton was directing the campaign. It’s time for the LNP to take a good hard look at themselves. Stop the internal politics, clean house and figure out what they stand for.

Matt

The problem is Dutton lost to the laziest and most inept Labor leader ever – that says a lot really. I wish Dutton well, but we needed an alternative that ran rings around Albo and that just didn’t happen

Anthony

Lay the boots in he has ten times the integrity of Albanese. Albanese a product of the system of lying and mud raking

Originally published as What you said about Peter Dutton losing seat of Dickson in federal election