A secret review of the Liberal party’s 2025 election has exposed the “extraordinary” catalogue of mistakes that combined to deliver its worst result in history.
After the Liberal party’s federal executive last week agreed to suppress the review, Guardian Australia obtained a leaked copy of the 64-page autopsy before Anthony Albanese tabled a copy in question time on Tuesday.
“The 2025 Federal Liberal campaign failure is widely considered to be the worst campaign the Party has ever fought,” the review, authored by party elders Pru Goward and Nick Minchin, found.
Here are six of the main takeaways.
A ‘grim and introverted leader’
Australian elections are increasingly presidential in nature, the review observed, making the leader the most “critical component” of the campaign.
In Dutton, that critical component was found to be fatally flawed.
“The electorate expects to see and hear an upbeat and inspiring leader,” the review said.
“All of that was lacking and the leader’s grim and introverted demeanour, clothed in the ubiquitous suit whatever the occasion, did not change during the campaign and perhaps reflected the heavy and additional burden he imposed on himself.”
Having fashioned a “hard-man” image throughout his political career, the review described Dutton as “unattractive to women” – so much so that some female candidates asked for him not to visit their electorates. He was also viewed as “lacking connection” with younger voters.
The former leader’s concerns about the potentially defamatory nature of the findings caused the federal executive to delay its scheduled release prior to Christmas.
Dutton did not respond to Guardian Australia’s inquiries but in comments to other media described the review as an “unprofessional attempt at a hit job”.
The 55-year-old lost his seat of Dickson in the election rout, ending a 24-year career in parliament.
A ‘broken’ relationship
The review laid bare a “broken” and “unworkable” relationship between Dutton, his office and the party’s federal director, Andrew Hirst, a campaign veteran who masterminded Scott Morrison’s “miracle” win in 2019.
Dutton had “little confidence” in Hirst from the start of the term, the review found, while the director felt “shut out”. Ordinarily, the leader is the public face of the campaign while the head office oversee logistics, including polling and research, timing of announcements and the production of campaigning materials.
But in 2025, Dutton effectively seized control of “campaign management”, sidelining Hirst and the party’s Parramatta-based campaign team.
Dutton’s “takeover” resulted in a lack of coordinated strategy and “chaotic travel and policy announcements”, the review concluded.
In some cases, Dutton’s team only shared details of announcements on the afternoon before their planned launch, leaving campaign headquarters scrambling to produce materials. The opposition leader sometimes decided to travel to a different location than the one decided earlier in the day.
“Peter Dutton made himself captain, coach and ballboy,” one unnamed Liberal state director told the review.
The review’s first recommendation is that the party must never again allow the parliamentary leader and office to effectively run the campaign.
The Trump factor
Dutton, unkindly referred to by one candidate as “Temu Trump” was successfully painted as “Trump-like” by Labor, as the Australian public’s view of the US administration quickly soured, the report found.
It stated the election of Donald Trump in November 2024 was initially welcomed, while Dutton was often likened to the Republican leader.
But announcements of the establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), opposition to diversity targets and mass public sackings, while initially received positively in the US, “quickly soured” the Australian electorate’s view of Trump.
Ahead of the election campaign, Dutton had described Trump as a “deal maker” and a “big thinker” over the US president’s plan to displace Palestinians on the Gaza Strip.
During the campaign, Dutton promised to cut at least 40,000 public service jobs, abolish working from home for public servants, and set up a shadow ministry for government efficiency.
Those policies were “seen as Trump-like” and were “so deeply unpopular they were later reversed or modified”.
Trump’s unpopular tariffs made the problem worse for Dutton, with the perceived similarity with Trump negatively affecting his approval rating. Shaking the association, the report said, would have “required a nimble and flexible response” from the opposition leader.
The ‘weird’ nuclear fantasy
The Coalition’s proposal to build government-owned nuclear reactors at seven sites across the country was arguably Dutton’s biggest and most contentious policy.
The review revealed that head office had conducted research on the politics of nuclear power dating back to Scott Morrison’s prime ministership, which confirmed a long public awareness campaign was necessary to shift the views of sceptical voters – specifically female voters.
The research was shared with Dutton’s office but wasn’t properly acted upon, allowing Labor to successfully prosecute arguments about the potential cost of the reactors.
A post-election survey conducted by CT Group, referenced in the review, found nuclear was “deeply unpopular” among female voters, who “considered it weird”.
The nuclear plan was part of an “incoherent” policy agenda, that also included the aborted work-from-home plan and promise to reverse Labor’s income tax cuts.
“The absence of a comprehensive suite of policies was the result of three years of poor policy processes followed by the parliamentary party, as we have already observed. There were not only significant policy gaps but also the promotion of policies which defied the Party’s values, such as the opposition to an income tax cut and the denial of flexible working arrangements agreed between employees and employers,” the review found.
‘Faulty polling’
In the days leading up to the 3 May election, senior Liberal strategists were dismissive of the national polls and insistent the party could pick up a swag of Labor-held seats in the outer suburbs and regions.
The review found the party was “disastrously misled” by “faulty” research from polling firm Freshwater Strategy, which significantly overstated support for the Coalition.
Part of it was due to the “faulty weighting” of the 2023 voice to parliament results – essentially the assumption that Labor supporters who voted against the proposition could be more likely to turn their backs on Anthony Albanese.
In one example a week out from polling day, Freshwater put the Liberal party ahead 62-38 in the Sydney seat of Banks. Labor ended up winning the seat 52.3-47.6.
In another case, the internal polling meant Dutton started election day in Victoria rather than in Queensland defending his own seat.
“Unfortunately, misleading polling added to the misallocation of financial and booth worker resources. At least one candidate advised that, since their polling looked good, they lost their booth workers to other seats,” the review found.
The review also shed light on the unusual “direct relationship” between Dutton and Freshwater’s principal pollster, Mike Turner.
Dutton often sought Turner’s advice even though he was a pollster, not a political strategist, and was working for other clients during the campaign – including the National party.
The review recommended the Liberals never again rely on a single polling firm and that the pollsters must not be allowed a direct line to the leader without the campaign director’s knowledge.
Freshwater declined to comment when contacted by Guardian Australia.
The firm no longer works for the federal Liberal party, but does work for the Nationals and the Queensland Liberal National party.
The female vote
Recommendation 14 of the review contains a statement of the obvious to followers of Australian politics: “The female vote is clearly a problem for the Liberal Party.”
But the report makes a striking observation about the party’s failure to attempt to understand why.
“After at least a decade of a declining female vote it remains a mystery that the party has not performed a deep-dive into its causes,” it found.
The review highlights the absence of senior female staff in the party’s head office and a lack of engagement with organisations such as Hilma’s Network – a grassroots group designed to bring “Liberal-minded women” together – and the non-partisan Women for Election Australia.
“Both those organisations have successfully identified and trained election candidates, and their alumni lists are impressive,” the review said.
“They could claim some expert knowledge of the female vote and what moves it. Yet both described a lack of interest in their work from MPs and some Women’s Councils, even distrust and hostility, including from the former leader’s office.”
Charlotte Mortlock, who founded Hilma’s Network, last month quit the party after the ousting of Sussan Ley, the party’s first female leader.
