Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been able to roam uncontested for too long. That is coming to an end. Photos: Michelle Kroll.
If anybody is watching, there are signs that Peter Dutton’s almost policy-free strongman act is fraying.
Mr Dutton has thrived in an environment where Prime Minister Albanese seems exasperatingly loath to take the fight up to the rampaging Opposition Leader and the Murdoch media continue to confect a climate of crisis and government paralysis, particularly in his favourite haunts of national security and crime.
The cost of living is hurting the government, which should be making much more of its energy rebates and tax cuts that have lessened the impact.
Inflation is coming down, and by rights, the Reserve Bank should deliver an interest rate cut next week but don’t bet on it.
Too often, Labor tends to believe that good policy will be good politics, but that has been shown to be demonstrably false in the new social media-driven world of daily hysteria. It needs to attach some passion to the detail so that the story can cut through all the noise.
Mr Dutton seems to believe that if it can create the vibe or feeling that Albo just isn’t up to it, then that will be enough for unhappy voters, along with the ones he so assiduously courted during the trial run that was the Voice referendum, to return the Coalition to government.
The polls show that he may well do it.
But with only weeks before the election is called, that dearth of policy and the repudiation of the few ideas that Mr Dutton has floated should see those polls narrow.
In an echo of the debauching of the public service that is going on in the US, Mr Dutton wants to sack 36,000 public servants here, hoping no doubt that voters will think they are all Canberra fat cats and not actually doing anything.
Trouble is Australian Public Service Commission data suggests that as of June last year, more than two-thirds of new roles created since 2022 were outside the nation’s capital.
Nationals leader David Littleproud, who has probably had a look at focus group data in country electorates, has walked back his support for such cuts and is now only talking about natural attrition, as is Liberal public service spokesperson Jane Hume, while still trying to make noises about waste.
No one in the Coalition will actually detail any proposed cuts or plans.
Anthony Albanese needs to show more fight if he doesn’t want to be a one-term PM.
The Coalition’s big-ticket energy policy – creating a nuclear power industry – also had a reality check this week. Electricity giant AGL rejected it, reaffirming that it will replace ageing coal-fired power stations with renewable sources and batteries.
“Both time and cost won’t allow nuclear to be done on time … the question right now is about getting on and getting this done as soon as we can,” AGL chief executive Damien Nicks told AAP.
“Our strategy is about building a whole range of assets, not one or the other. It’s going to be renewables, batteries, pumped hydro, gas peakers to support what this market needs,” he said.
Labor’s energy transition policy is not perfect, but at least it is a plan rather than a strategy to extend fossil fuel use as long as possible.
A recent read of a Quarterly Essay by climate scientist Joelle Gerguis, Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia’s Future, was hair-raising stuff before trying to get a good night’s sleep.
If you accept the science, our kids will have a rough time if our leaders don’t act sooner rather than later. Time is not on our side.
On housing, Mr Dutton’s key policy is allowing young people to access up to $50,000 of their superannuation for a deposit. That might be attractive, but like all past help for first-home buyers, it will likely only boost already high prices and degrade the superannuation system.
In any case, it won’t help that many first-home buyers with prices the way they are.
This week, Mr Dutton tried to portray the Prime Minister as slow to react to the Trump tariff announcement and not having the strength to man up to the new strongman President. Ditto for Ambassador Kevin Rudd
That would require someone like him.
It turns out that the problem for Australian steel and aluminium originated in the undertakings given by the former Coalition government to restrain exports to win an exemption during Trump’s first term, which Australia did not live up to.
Sometimes I wonder what has happened to Labor leaders in recent times for them to lose their former personalities and adopt such a sober and reasonable demeanour that they become almost robotic.
It’s as if their handlers confuse responsible and statesmanlike with just being plain boring.
No such restraints on Mr Dutton who, without evidence or detail beyond the latest headline in the Murdoch universe, will make whatever outrageous claim is necessary to stir outrage.
That shouldn’t be enough to become Prime Minister. As the election nears, the facts (such a post-truth concept, I know) and a lack of any real plan when it comes to the economy, climate change, you name it, should begin to erode his position.
Mr Dutton’s willingness to mimic President Trump’s culture war pronouncements should also worry Australians; that’s not the kind of strength the nation needs.
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