The cyclone that took the wind out of Peter Dutton's sails

The Age

24-04-2025

There was dread in Labor's huddled ranks that the weeks of forced hesitation would erode Labor's chances of gaining sorely needed lift-off from the interest-rate reduction announced by the Reserve Bank in mid-February.
Worse, the postponement meant the government would have to host a budget it did not want to deliver. It could only herald a sea of red running into the hazy distance, guaranteeing the taunt that Labor can't handle the economy.
Instead, the forced interregnum allowed weeks for a witch's brew to begin bubbling – one that would turn close to toxic for the surging Dutton.
Predominant among the ingredients was Donald Trump.
It is strange now to recall that Trump's latest elevation to the US presidency at the start of this year was thought, at least by some conservatives, to bestow a sort of blessing upon Dutton and his agenda.
The stance against 'woke' culture, the plan to take an axe to the public service, the talk of deporting dual citizens; these, it was said quietly, blended handily with the sort of approach that had reunited Trump with the world's most powerful job.
Dutton got so carried away that he spoke of Trump as 'shrewd' after the president proposed turning the ruins of war-shredded Gaza into a Riviera-style Middle Eastern playground.
It's worth recalling Dutton's words of the time, for you will never hear them from any sensible mouth again: 'People who dismiss President Trump and say that he's not serious or whatever derogatory comments they want to make, I just think it defies the reality of the gravitas he brings to the situation.'
Time passed, Trump's name became more poisonous daily, and Dutton, as the campaign finally got under way and Trump blew up the world's trading and economic systems, was hoist with his own petard.
We don't need to examine this in much greater detail. It has already become the stuff of numerous columns.
Meanwhile, the budget so feared by shaky Labor strategists turned out to be not much more than a ho-hum event, with – surprise, surprise – slim tax cuts getting the headlines. Much of it was forgotten in days.
Any hope Dutton might have had in gaining traction with his budget-in-reply – resting on that old standby, tax relief on fuel for a year – stalled when Albanese called the election the following morning.
The Liberal campaign was caught in neutral. Mysteriously, it took Dutton a whole week to find himself in proximity to a petrol bowser, where he might have been able to get pedalling by spruiking his promise to reduce fuel prices by 25¢ a litre for a year.
When he finally got to the fuel pumps, the novelty wore off as fast as the campaign was sprinting away from him.
If luck's a fortune in politics, momentum is the holy grail in election campaigns.
After the Cyclone Alfred pause and the subsequent later date for the election gave time for the Trump dump to begin turning voters sour on the Liberals, according to polls and bookies, Dutton desperately needed to find momentum from somewhere.
Momentum in a five-week campaign is always in short supply.
Those with memories recalled Malcolm Fraser's decision to briefly suspend campaigning in 1983 after the Ash Wednesday bushfires. He never regained whatever momentum he might have had, and soon Bob Hawke was prime minister.
Three weeks after Albanese and Dutton began touring the nation in their compulsory high-vis jackets, Easter arrived, clogging the roads with families escaping hearth, home and electioneering doorknockers.
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The campaign was suspended to allow the leaders to prove their God-fearing credentials.
By Easter Monday, with combat renewed, Dutton proved mad keen to regain momentum by announcing that crime was so bad down south, Victorians were afraid to go to the shops.
And then word came that the Pope had ended his earthly duties.
Albanese, a Catholic of Italian heritage, was off to Mass on Tuesday morning, announcing, with Dutton's concurrence, that the campaign should pause for the day. Dutton, who has said he 'identifies' with the Catholic Church, also attended Mass., went to Mass too.
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The mourning period gave them time to prepare for the evening's third televised debate of the campaign.
Two of the three journalists asking the questions thought they detected a pulse – Dutton and Albanese briefly abandoned their recitations of talking points to call each other liars – and gave the event, possibly out of pity, to Dutton.
Our astute political editor, David Crowe, called it a draw, politely avoiding scoring it nil-all.