Dutton’s disastrous start to the campaign

It’s hard to believe how disastrous the start of the Liberal Party’s election campaign was. How could they have been so unprepared?

The first week of the federal election campaign has ended, and what’s immediately clear is just how under-prepared, incoherent, and self-destructive the Liberal Party appears to be under Peter Dutton’s leadership. What should have been an opportunity to showcase discipline, vision, and a credible alternative to the Labor government has, instead, become a case study in political mismanagement. From tone-deaf gaffes to rhetoric designed to inflame the public, the Coalition’s opening week reveals a party that’s out of touch, stuck in an echo chamber and cul-de-sac of outdated culture wars, and unable to articulate a compelling agenda for the country.

Dutton, who was expected to use this campaign to reframe his public image and project leadership potential – or a chance to “smile and maybe show a different side” and the rest of his character, as he said in his challenge against then Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull in 2018 – has only reinforced the perception of a figure out of step with the electorate.

His fallback on tired old tropes – China fear-mongering, accusations of ‘indoctrination” in school education, the anti-’woke’ rhetoric – makes him appear trapped in the past, and not opening up to the future. These tactics might stir up parts of the conservative base, but they appear tone-deaf to a broader electorate searching for optimism and clarity. Leaders who want to win elections need to appeal to a wider audience, not just the conservative rump of their own party who argue the pathway to victory would be assured, if only the Liberal Party could become even more right wing.

This was evident in his response to a Chinese research vessel travelling through international waters near Tasmania and Victoria, as part of a joint China–New Zealand ocean floor project. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would “have preferred the ship wasn’t there” but Dutton immediately escalated the matter, accusing Albanese of having “lost control of national security” and falsely claiming the vessel was gathering intelligence. It was a reckless accusation, showing the same combative mindset that once led him to label asylum seekers “illiterate and innumerate”, or “African gangs” causing havoc in Melbourne. This sort of inflammatory rhetoric with racist undertones might appeal to the hardliners, but it telegraphs desperation to the broader public. Of course, unreconstructed racists are out there in the community and they do vote – just like everyone else – but there’s not enough of them out there to turn this into a winning formula.

Meanwhile, the Coalition bungled its response to the big trade issue of the week: the 10 per cent tariff imposed by the United States on Australian goods. Rather than offering a considered response, Dutton reached for the populist megaphone, insisting that he would have secured an exemption – despite the fact that no country has achieved this under the new U.S. trade measures, not even the Heard and McDonald Islands, Australian territory which is uninhabited by humans, but populated with penguins and many other birds, wildlife and sea creatures. These were empty talking points in place of substance, another example of a campaign more interested in grievance and outrage than governance.

Then came the comments about official residences: Dutton declared he would prefer to live in Kirribilli House in Sydney rather than The Lodge in Canberra if elected Prime Minister, dissing the people of Canberra at the same time. In the midst of a national housing crisis, the optics were terrible. To voters struggling with rising rents and home ownership out of reach, a prospective leader appearing to pick and choose between luxury homes was not just out of touch – it was insulting – as if to suggest that the position of prime minister for Dutton is going to become a procession of holidays in a harbour-side mansion. Certainly, these are just minor issues but it does provide an insight into the lack of discipline within the Coalition’s campaign.

Capping off the week was a bizarre incident that might end up being symbolic of the entire campaign: Dutton accidentally kicked a football into the head of a Channel 10 camera operator, then responded not with concern but laughter – “Got him! Got him! He’s split open too!” – hilarious – offering a glimpse of callousness that belied his carefully curated persona. In a single moment, Dutton managed to display not just poor judgement, but a striking lack of empathy. Again, these are minor issues that no-one really cares about too much – except for the camera operator Ghaith Nader who, ironically is a former Iraqi refugee – but offer insights into the character of a leader and potential prime minister.

Compounding all of this are growing reports of internal disunity. Leaks from the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party suggest that moderates are actively working against the leadership, even supplying information directly to the Labor Party. It’s a clear sign of the discontent brewing within the ranks, as the moderate faction of NSW seeks to wrest back control from the conservative Queensland rump.

By the end of the first week, Dutton looked like a man stumbling through a minefield of his own making. The campaign was supposed to be his moment to prove he could lead the nation. Instead, he delivered panic, provocation and, above all, a constant stream of negativity, even kicking a football into the head of a former asylum seeker. Sure, it was an accident, but just so symbolic of Dutton’s entire political career. The Coalition had a chance to reset and offer a real alternative but what it offered instead, was chaos. They’ve squibbed it.

The opinion poll numbers are dropping for the Coalition

Across every major opinion poll, the trend is consistent and a pattern is forming: voters are drifting away from the Coalition and speculations and feelings about this drift are now being confirmed by numbers. If the current figures are any indication, Dutton and the Liberal Party are heading for a disaster on election day.

Four major polls – Roy Morgan, Essential, Resolve and Freshwater – were released during the week, and while the figures are all slightly different, all point to a clear loss of momentum for the Coalition. Even Freshwater, which has historically leaned toward the Liberals and gave them a narrow 51–49 per cent lead in their recent poll, now shows a softening trend compared to previous results.

The most influential opinion poll, Newspoll, released late on Sunday night, paints an even more difficult picture for the Liberal Party: 52 per cent to Labor and 48 per cent to the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis, which is similar to the results of the 2022 federal election. While a four-point gap may seem surmountable, in the context of federal elections, it can spell the difference between a marginal loss and a complete rout.

Despite the cliché of the only poll that matters is the poll on election day, the hard heads in the respective campaign strategy teams would know that these trends do matter. Polls taken in aggregate don’t just tell you who’s ahead at any given time; they reveal where momentum is building, the messages that are resonating, and where all the vulnerabilities lie. And right now, the data suggests Dutton’s campaign is repelling more voters than it’s attracting, especially women.

Pollsters have a vested interest in accuracy, especially when it gets much closer to the date of the election. While some may have ideological biases and interpret the results to support political agendas outside of the election period, their business model depends on being taken seriously so close to when the real result – the actual election – is revealed. So, when every opinion poll is now showing the same pattern, it becomes impossible to ignore: the Liberal–National Coalition is in serious trouble.

Even Sky News is turning away

One of the more telling moments of the week – albeit small – came not from a politician, but from the Coalition’s unofficial media wing. On Sky News – long regarded as the centre of conservative spin – even the propaganda machine seemed to have enough. In a series of vox pops conducted in Melbourne, voters offered their views on the party leaders, and rather than cherry-picking favourable responses, Sky aired raw, unfiltered public sentiment – and it didn’t favour Dutton.

Asked about Albanese, voters described him as “doing a good job” or “okay”. When Dutton’s name came up, the reactions were quick: “He’s not that popular”… “No” …“I don’t think he’ll do good.” For a network known for its editorial manipulations and fabrications at every opportunity, this was a deviation from the script, and definitely not on message. Not that many people watch Sky News, but it does have a dedicated hard-core audience, addicted to conservative bias and the politics of outrage, just like its big brother in the U.S., Fox News. Whether intentional or accidental, this signalled a rare admission: the public isn’t buying what the Coalition is selling.

The bigger question is: why wasn’t the Coalition ready for this campaign? Everyone knew the election had to be called by May 17 and even if the actual date – May 3 – wasn’t known, there would have been an expectation after the summer break in late January, that an election would have to be called soon. Yet the Liberals began the campaign by being caught off guard, unsure of their footing. The messaging lacked cohesion, their agenda appeared thin, and their overall tone reeked of complacency and incompetence.

In contrast, Labor looked disciplined, prepared and confident. Perhaps learning from the Voice to Parliament referendum, where the ‘No’ side mobilised early and seized the agenda, Albanese’s team has struck early and decisively. Of course, they knew exactly when the election was going to be called, but they have framed the campaign even before Dutton knew what was going on.

While Dutton is obviously borrowing from Trump’s chaos campaign playbook – by projecting disorder and chaos now to conceal strategies that might arrive later in the campaign (or even policies announced after the election is over) – it’s a tactic that doesn’t translate into Australian politics. Although there is a small number of instances of voter fraud, double voting and electoral manipulation in Australia, there is not enough of it to influence election outcomes – our electoral system is too robust, too transparent, and too decentralised to allow chaos to become a campaign strategy. And besides this, Dutton has neither the charisma nor the ability to pull it off. As much as he’d like to try, he’s not Donald Trump.

With opinion polling numbers becoming more set, internal divisions widening, and the public losing interest, the early warning signs have turned into alarm bells. Even the Coalition’s staunchest media allies start to back away – Sky News but, interestingly, not the ABC – if only subtly. When the echo chamber starts to crack, it’s often a sign of the entire edifice beginning to collapse.

There are still just under four weeks remaining in the 2025 election campaign and anything can still happen: it always does. A five-point lead in the opinion polls evaporated for opposition leader John Hewson in the 1993 federal election and he lost that election, even though just the day before the election, the Liberal Party was still highly expected to win. That was a surprise victory, as was the 2019 federal election, which was lost by the Labor Party. If the Dutton-led Coalition does win the 2025 election, it will be a surprise election victory, and these types of surprise victories tend to only happen once in a generation.

Week one of this campaign was supposed to set the tone. Instead, it exposed fragility, lack of preparation, and a deep disconnect between Dutton and the electorate. And it already has a feeling that, unless things change dramatically, it might already be all over.