The unexpected departure of Karen Andrews from shadow cabinet necessitated a wider reshuffle, but Peter Dutton has taken to the task with all the subtlety of the proverbial sledgehammer to a walnut.
When Julian Leeser announced his departure from the frontbench last week to campaign in favour of the Indigenous voice, it immediately put the Coalition’s two Indigenous senators – Jacinta Price and Kerrynne Liddle – in the frame for promotion.
Although both are first-term senators, the Coalition could benefit from their experience throughout the voice referendum debate, in which both are happy to argue the case for no.
But there was a more cautious approach considered: to promote one to shadow assistant minister for Indigenous Australians, while transferring the shadow minister’s responsibility to an existing cabinet member, such as Anne Ruston.
In elevating Price to the shadow minister role, parachuting her straight into cabinet, Dutton has opted for a high-risk strategy of maximising the Coalition’s brand differentiation with Labor and locking in hard against the voice.
Perhaps it should be unsurprising that in a reshuffle sparked by taking the middle-of-the-road option of a free vote off the table, Dutton has doubled down by promoting a strident opponent of the voice all the way into shadow cabinet.
Price got to work early, attacking the referendum proposal which she said some Indigenous communities felt was being pushed by “those who have long-held positions within the Aboriginal industry”.
Price declared it was “utterly ridiculous” that in South Australia people “can write a statutory declaration and claim to be Indigenous” and have input into that state’s voice, adding this was “deeply concerning”.
The other remarkable aspect of Price’s promotion is that she is the seventh National in cabinet – one more than the quota guarantees the junior member of the Coalition. With 21 Nationals in parliament, one-third are now in the shadow cabinet.
That is a win for the Nationals leader, David Littleproud. He was quick to declare it a “proud day” and credited his party with having “led the debate” on the voice by opposing it in November.
The Nationals’ influence is expanding not because their numbers in the Coalition party room require it – in fact, they lost an MP, Andrew Gee, over the voice in December.
Rather, it is because Dutton’s conservatism puts him naturally closer on social issues to their regions-first ideology than to Liberal moderates within his own party.
After the Aston byelection defeat, Dutton declared that the Coalition is “the party of regional and rural Australia” and that too much of Labor’s effort is “concentrated on capital cities”.
On Tuesday Dutton said he wants his “best people on the paddock” and it would be “silly to overlook [Price’s] obvious talent” because of a quota.
Reasonable minds can differ about the merit of a candidate for any job – and in the context of a reshuffle “obvious talent” can just mean whoever suits the leader most.
Littleproud said Price’s promotion means that women hold 60% of the party’s shadow cabinet positions. He praised the “diversity”, experience and “commonsense” the party brings to Canberra.
There’s nothing wrong with the Nationals representing a particular constituency, but the non-Labor side of politics in Australia has succeeded over many decades because it combines the strength of the conservative and liberal political tendencies.
But liberals are increasingly finding a home elsewhere: with the teal independents in the seven inner-city seats they now hold; or with Labor, which won blue-ribbon seats such as Higgins, Bennelong and now Aston; or the Greens, who won Ryan and Brisbane from the Liberals.
Who is left to represent the experience of the parts of the country the Coalition needs to win to get back in government?
A rump of moderates who spoke in favour of a free vote on the voice in shadow cabinet and a few more committed advocates including MP Bridget Archer and Senator Andrew Bragg.
Price may speak for some Indigenous people who feel the voice will make little practical difference, but public opinion polling and the consensus in the Uluru statement from the heart would suggest this is a minority view.
By deriding those who disagree with her as the “Aboriginal industry”, Price is hardly the model of good faith that opponents of the voice, including Dutton, say must be a feature of the debate.
Dutton continues to go all-in on the Sky after dark strategy that the Coalition must first shift right to rebuild its base to achieve electoral success – in this case elevating the voice’s most strident critic.
