When Peter Dutton became opposition leader, he was instantly dismissed by the mainstream media as unelectable. Sure, Dutton lacks the looks or charisma of the MSM’s favourite politicians, but so what? Christopher Luxon proved that neither baldness nor the personality of a month-old lettuce are an impediment to winning an election. Besides, Dutton has something Luxon doesn’t: a strong agenda of policy substance. Even more, he apparently believes it.
Since taking over the coalition leadership nearly three years ago, Dutton has slowly re-built his party’s fortunes. A clear turning-point was his politically brave and principled decision to oppose the Voice referendum. Australians, sick and tired of being browbeaten by a ‘bipartisan’ elite collective, responded. The referendum was doomed to overwhelming defeat. Since then, on issues from nuclear energy to fighting anti-Semitism, Dutton has set the political agenda and constantly front-footed the government.
Aided by their own legendary incompetence, the Albanese government is more and more likely to be consigned to the ignominy of just the second one-term government in Australian history. The likelihood of a Dutton win in the upcoming election is such that even staunchly left-wing media like the Age are openly talking about his path to victory.
In 2024, if the polls are any guide, Dutton is in with a real chance to win the next election, forging forward as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese loses ground.
This month’s Resolve Political Monitor showed the coalition’s primary vote fell by one percentage point to 38, Labor’s fell by three percentage points to 27 per cent and 35 per cent of voters nominated another party. This would almost certainly deliver a hung parliament on election day, with either side potentially able to cobble together minority government.
Dutton needs to win 21 seats to govern in majority. If that sounds like a lot, just consider how slender Labor’s grip on power really is. Their primary vote at the last election was the second-lowest in Australian history. If the polls are right, it’s sunk even lower since. While majority government is an outside chance, minority government at least is almost certain.
In contrast to the shambolic and confused Labor government, the Dutton opposition is disciplined and resolutely on-message. Even wet, wannabe-Green ‘moderates’ like the execrable Bridget McKenzie have learned – been made? – to pull their heads in.
Dutton has been mostly gaffe-free (it’s hard to imagine him repeating his 2015 “joke” about Pacific Islanders being hit by climate change) and on message. He speaks in short, declarative sentences and quickly stamps out spot fires, such as when he quashed the abortion debate last month just as high-profile conservative Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said late-term terminations should be on the agenda.
“I support a woman’s right to choose,” he said in a rare phone call to ABC’s Radio National. “I’ve been in very difficult circumstances where, as a detective working in the sex offenders squad, I’ve dealt with women in domestic relationships who have been raped; it’s a very, very difficult situation. Ultimately, that’s a choice and a decision for that individual to make, and that’s the position I support.”
Even the woke ‘moderates’ in the coalition are admitting that Dutton is making all the right moves.
History proved Dutton right when he chose to oppose the Voice to Parliament in 2023, but he demonstrated political judgment again at the start of January 2024, when he quickly dropped his broken promises attack on the changes to stage 3 tax cuts after it became clear that most voters didn’t care about discarded election pledges if they got more money in their pockets.
The opposition leader has savaged Labor on its handling of immigration policy following the High Court’s NZYQ decision and prosecuted the case for reduced migration, linking the issue to housing shortages successfully, too.
On the number one issue concerning most voters, the cost of living, he has mauled Labor while offering scant detail about how he would fix it.
Unlike too many conservatives in the past, Dutton refuses to play by the MSM’s rules. Especially the notoriously left-wing ABC.
When he does front up at a press conference it’s more often than not in a far-flung outer suburban seat or in a regional town, far from metropolitan newsrooms. Tracked down at these remote locations, he has proved brittle, taking a belligerent approach to questions asked by young reporters, especially if they happen to work for the ABC.
In other words, he has no truck with the bullshit of woke, inner-city, bourgeois Millennials.
And they wonder why Australians are listening to Dutton.