Early on in Peter Dutton’s stint as opposition leader, he made two interesting appointments: Julian Leeser, for shadow Indigenous affairs minister, and Ted O’Brien, for shadow climate change.
The appointments seemed to speak to two possible paths for the Coalition under Dutton.
A softer, more harmonious approach with an advocate for an Indigenous voice in that key portfolio; and a culture war-driven approach to global heating with an advocate of nuclear energy.
It’s been obvious for some time that the hard-man approach has killed off any possibility of the former.
After Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the Nationals decided to oppose the voice, that decision was effectively out of Dutton’s hands. Party, rather than national unity, demanded the Coalition oppose it.
This term of parliament has served up a succession of opportunities for Dutton not to soften his Queensland cop image (by smiling more, as he once suggested) but to double down on appearing to be a strong man, versus a weak prime minister.
The 7 October Hamas attacks, the high court ruling that indefinite detention is unlawful, criminals getting their visas back due to new ministerial rules – and on, and on.
Donald Trump’s election victory in the US contained two messages for the Coalition: victory is possible by framing the election as a referendum on the incumbent’s handling of the cost-of-living crisis; and culture war issues are worth their weight in gold because they exploit fears among some swing voters that progressives are not like them.
This week Dutton has served up a smorgasbord of such culture war fights.
Dutton claimed that Josh Burns, a Jewish Labor MP, had failed to speak up about antisemitism in the community even though he has, consistently, and Labor has introduced measures to deal with antisemitism.
Now Burns has accused Dutton of actually having blocked his shadow minister from reading Burns’ words to disrupt a display of political bipartisanship after the Melbourne synagogue arson attack.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) director general, Mike Burgess, urged all Australians to “watch our words” – but never mind, Dutton is well-practised at ignoring such injunctions.
Dutton suggested that there may have been political interference by the climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, in the science agency Csiro’s continued warning that the timing and economics of a civilian nuclear program in Australia do not stack up.
On Sky News After Dark with Peta Credlin, Dutton accused Anthony Albanese of “dividing our country unnecessarily” by displaying the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags alongside the Australian flag at press conferences. Dutton vowed to end the practice.
Australian Venue Co – which owns 200 pubs and bars – directed its venues not to “specifically celebrate” Australia Day because it causes hurt for some patrons and staff, then backflipped.
Of course, Dutton was on hand to comment about how unAustralian all that was, as he did when calling to boycott Woolworths over not stocking Australia Day merchandise in January.
What is the point of this inundation of culture war guff?
Labor has been trying to get a line up about how irresponsible it is that the Coalition are yet to release the costings that would underpin their controversial nuclear plan. Good luck hearing above the noise the sensible thought that taxpayers might like to know how many billions they are on the hook for.
The other point to consider is to bait Labor into engaging on these issues – confirming they are not on your side because they are not as upset about the flags, or the pubs, or whatever; confirming they are weak because they have enough compassion to acknowledge that both antisemitism and Islamophobia are a problem. How dare they?
Facing a largely conservative media, Labor’s choice is either to allow Dutton to continue angry monologues, or to elevate the Coalition’s talking points further by clapping back.
The observation that Dutton is always trying to divide Australians is correct but does not seem to have done anything to dent his long march to a winnable position in the polls.
The better line is that all this bandwidth Dutton has dedicated to thumping Labor with simplistic lines of attack could be better spent on actually developing his alternative cost of living policies.
Labor thinks it can win the next election by asking who can be trusted to help voters most in the next three years.
On income tax cuts, and nuclear costings, and housing policies, there are too many blank spaces on the Coalition side, and plenty of ammo for Labor to fire about repealing industrial relations changes taking wages backwards.
Nobody doubts Dutton’s ability to flood the zone, but is that all there is? Dutton thinks he’s a hard man, but where is the plan?
Two fewer flags at press conferences and more Australiana at pubs might work for another week or month but ultimately prove a road to nowhere.
