Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s Sunday “soft launch” of his campaign for election year was carefully calibrated to pitch to the party faithful while seeking to project enough nuance to avoid alienating centrist voters.
It contained nothing new – there was no attention-catching big announcement to start the year.
Rather, this was Dutton (re)introducing himself (“I was born into an outer suburbs working-class family”) with a back story focusing on aspiration; canvassing Coalition priorities and policy offerings to date, and delivering the usual critique of Labor’s alleged incompetence and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “weak” leadership.
