How Peter Dutton destroyed the Liberal Party

Herald Sun

07-05-2025

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EXCLUSIVE
Five days before voters in Queensland terminated Peter Dutton's political career, Liberal Party director Andrew Hirst sounded the alarm.
'Peter should spend every cent he's got,'' he warned of the threat that Labor could steal his electorate of Dickson.
It was the first time there was any serious inkling he was in strife in the seat which he had occupied for 24 years.
The Liberals had previously polled the seat and he had a 55-45 lead.
The fact the Prime Minister began his campaign in the seat was dismissed as 'mind games.'
On the end of the phone to Andrew Hirst was Jamie Briggs, a former Liberal MP and friend of the Liberal leader who was known as the Dutton whisperer at the Liberal's campaign headquarters.
Peter Dutton. Picture Thomas Lisson / NewsWire
Liberal Party director Andrew Hirst (centre, with Tony Abbott, Peta Credlin in 2013) first sounded the alarm about Dutton's seat. Picture: AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The campaign director said that Labor was spending big on digital ads in Dickson.
That could only mean one thing. The threat was real and Labor believed they had a real chance of flipping the seat.
Mr Briggs then told Liberal pollster Dr Mike Turner not to poll the seat again at that late stage to avoid 'spooking' the leader.
The answer was to throw $100,000 into the digital spend in the last week. But it was too late.
On election night, the Liberal leader was told early in the night that his seat was gone.
'I agree,'' he responded.
Cyclone Alfred approaches
Cyclone Alfred, the weather event that would unleash a long tail of destruction in Mr Dutton's political career, was still forming on February 20, 2025 from a tropical low in the Coral Sea.
Soon, it would gather pace, heading east before changing course for the mainland, forcing the Prime Minister to cancel plans to call an election for April 12.
That meant handing down a budget on March 25 and the government unveiling the tax cuts it had been working on over summer amid high secrecy.
The tax cuts blindsided the Liberal Party and triggered a series of strategic errors that would blow up the campaign.
Cyclone Alfred also meant that Mr Dutton's plans to visit Sydney to hold a fundraiser with wealthy donors at billionaire Justine Hemmes mansion would have to occur as his constituents sandbagged their homes.
Of course, he never expected news of his secret trip to leak. But it did.
Billionaire Justin Hemmes and partner Madeline Holtznagel. Picture: Instagram
Mr Dutton flew to a fundraiser at Hemmes' $100m Vaucluse mansion. Picture: Instagram
Labor's tax cuts
High secrecy surrounded the preparations by the Prime Minister and his Treasurer to offer modest tax cuts in the budget.
The work began over summer.
Originally the Albanese Government planned to release the tax cuts on the first or second Sunday of campaign but it became budget centrepiece instead
This was the budget that the Labor Party had not planned to deliver before Cyclone Alfred hit the Queensland coast.
Unexpectedly, the weather event also provided fodder for the ALP after it discovered that Mr Dutton had made a flying visit to Sydney as cyclone preparations got underway in his own electorate.
The story of his visit to attend thge Hemmes fundraiser ran all the way to election day with the Queensland ALP wrapping the booths in posters highlighting his cyclone trip.
But behind the scenes, the Prime Minister had been working on a plan to deliver modest tax cuts for a while.
At first, the media mocked the tax cuts because they were only $5 to $10 a week in the second year.
But Mr Albanese wasn't worried. That's why they were called 'top up tax cuts'.
'Albo and the Treasurer were both equally keen,'' a Labor source said.
Jamie Briggs (right, with media personality David Koch) was dubbed the 'Dutton Whisperer'. Picture: AAP/ Mike Burton
'It's a trap!'
The tax cuts presented a clear choice for the Opposition.
Back the tax cuts or oppose them.
The government held a very dim view of the strategic nous of the Liberal's treasury spokesman Angus Taylor.
'The more we thought about it the more we thought we had a chance with Angus he would f*ck it up too,'' a Labor frontbencher said.
'That wasn't our primary motivation but it was in our mind.'
Astonishingly, in the budget lock up the Treasury spokesman argued they should oppose the tax cuts to have a better bottomline.
'We hadn't even agreed to legislate it beforehand but Angus gave us an opening,'' a Labor frontbencher said.
The Prime Minister moved to immediately legislate the tax cuts to ratchet up the pressure.
The Liberals decided to vote against the tax in the floor of parliament.
The tax cuts were designed to remind voters of the Albanese Government's decision to renovate the Stage 3 tax cuts to deliver more relief for low and middle income earners, a move the government believes was one of the best things they did in their first term.
Peter Dutton (with wife Kirrily) was urged to 'spend every cent' he had to save his seat of Dickson. Picture:A rush job
Mr Dutton's signature fuel excise cut and a one-off tax cut promise were rush-jobs cobbled together in hours after the Labor Party blindsided their opponents by announcing tax cuts.
'That's the reason why you are cobbling together very generic ads at the end,'' a Liberal campaigner laughed.
'Because you don't know what the policy is, right?'
One man who watched it unfold at the Liberal Party's Parramatta HQ, said it was a fatal mistake.
'I mean, like, how long is your list of f*ck ups? It's huge,'' he said.
A Liberal frontbencher confirmed the fuel excise cut was all very last minute.
'Oh, look, we had actually talked about that previously, but we had assumed Labor wasn't going to do anything on tax until they did it in the budget,'' he said.
'And then we, you know, looked at the cupboard and what the options were. And that was one of the easiest ones. But it was very much a reaction to the budget. Oh, absolutely no question.
Mr Dutton was blindsided by Labor's tax cuts and cobbled together a last-minute fuel excuise cut in response, insiders claim. Picture: Richard Dobson / Newswire
Income threshold plan
Despite promising to be the party of better, fairer taxes, the Liberal leader overruled his Treasurer Angus Taylor on ambitious plans for the indexation of tax thresholds.
'I think what happened was, when we tested the indexation of tax brackets, it was so much more popular, even though the immediate benefit wasn't there because it was seen as more fundamental and structural reform,'' a Liberal source said.
'So I think he was probably more in favour of that. I think Jamie Briggs was pushing that too, but in the end, it was just too expensive.'
Instead, the $6 billion fuel tax cut was scrambled together within 48 hours of the Prime Minister's surprise tax cuts in the March 25 budget.
The tax offset announced at the campaign launch just weeks later was thrown into the speech as a last-minute addition.
It had a budget cost of $10 billion, adding to the $6 billion cost of the Coalition's 12-month halving of fuel excise.
But the last minute $16 billion spend-a-thon then sparked delays to announcing policies the party had discussed for months and in some cases years.
The fights that followed included a 'blow up' over the tax deduction for first home buyers and a bombshell plan to index income thresholds that never officially saw the light of day.
Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor had ambitious plans for the indexation of tax thresholds, but was overruled. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Too many men in blue ties
Even men who worked at the Liberal's campaign HQ noticed that the brains trust was almost entirely male.
'I walked into the CHQ meetings every morning at 5:30am and it was a c*ckfest,'' one Liberal said.
'You know, it was all blokes, basically.'
There was a woman running Peter Dutton's media unit, the veteran Liberal staffer Nicole Chant.
She was known for not always returning calls and concurring with her bosses views on the ABC and The Guardian being 'hate media'.
Ironically, it was Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume who was the architect of one of Peter Dutton's biggest disasters when she rolled out her plan to stop public servants working from home.
'Talk about a catastrophe,'' a Liberal said.
'She didn't ask, she didn't seek approval for this, for the five days back in the office.'
But Peter Dutton didn't expect it to be a big deal. Another big mistake.
'This is a big deal. This is actually a big deal because this is how people run their lives,'' a Liberal said.
'And we're telling people the way you run your life is wrong, yeah? And, like, that's
crazy.'
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - NewsWire Photos - Thursday, 1 May 2025: Finance spokeswoman Jane Hume pictured speaking about the release of the Coalition's election costings at Bligh Street, Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer
Pollster came up with $1200 tax cut
The plan to offer a one-off $1200 tax cut appears to have been the big idea of the Liberal pollster Mike Turner who now faces a political autopsy into his predictions.
It was opposed by the Liberal's treasury spokesman Angus Taylor who was overruled by Peter Dutton.
''The pollster sent those messages to everyone for like, two weeks, like, we're all getting these messages, you know, just your daily reminder,'' a campaign staffer said.
'Like, you know, he became, he became quite obsessed by this sort of idea. He was trying to find the tactical way to, you know, get into what we were seeing as the soft vote.
'(Mr Taylor) didn't want it but was overruled.
'Actually he took it pretty well, Angus. He accepted Peter as a leader.
Liberal's housing policy
Meanwhile, there was an ongoing brawl over another signature policy: housing.
The housing spokesman had worked on the policy for years but Mr Dutton was dragging his heels.
A senior strategy meeting was told he could 'blow up' if he wasn't happy.
'You've even got people like Michael Sukkar holding Peter Dutton's team to ransom,'' one Liberal campaign staffer said.
'We had calls with Dutton and Dagleish and present on that call was Alex May. Andrew Hirst, Simon Berger, Jamie Briggs, Andrew Stone, James Patterson, Molly Hughes and Mike Turner.
'And basically all of us sort of vetoed the housing one because it's just not a good policy. It didn't test well, it's super confusing.
'That was midway through the campaign.
'In the end, that sort of got overruled.
'Like, you know, like we were sort of being sort of blackmailed into doing a policy that we doesn't test well? And we don't think it's helpful. Why are we doing it right? Is this normal.
'Andrew Hirst was basically like, 'No, this is not really that normal, to be fair. It's not really that normal to not have the policy settled this little set this late, right.'
Liberal pollster Mike Turner now faces a political autopsy into his predictions.
Like Peter Dutton, Mr Sukkar lost his seat on election night.
'HQ never polled his seat. He polled his own seat and said, 'Yeah, I'm fine. I'm all good, right?','' a campaign source said.
'And then he held the campaign team and the leadership team to ransom.
'So I think he was probably more in favour of that. I think Jamie Briggs was pushing that too, but in the end, it was just too expensive.
'Sukkar was certainly pushing very hard for it, and Peter was never kind of completely over the line.'
But Liberal MPs dispute any suggestion that Mr Sukkar would blow up anything, maintaining he was simply passionate about his policy.
'I have a lot of sympathy for him because Peter indicated he would do it,' a Liberal MP said.
And then Mr Dutton got the last minute wobbles. He equivocated before putting the mortgage tax deduction into his campaign launch speech on April 12.
It was too late to sell or explain. It did however drown out the other announcement: the pollster's $1200 temporary tax cut.
The Trump factor
The re-election of US President Donald Trump loomed large during the campaign.
On January 21, his inauguration was flooding news websites.
On February 28, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, JD Vance, the vice president of the United States, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, held a highly contentious bilateral meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C.
The Liberal Party's polling started to drop. Then came the tariffs and the plunge began.
Donald Trump meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Picture: Saul Loeb/ AFP.
How the Voice victory buggered the Liberals
As the post-mortem begins into how it all went wrong, Liberal strategists cite three reasons why the polling did not predict the result.
The first reason is that the Voice referendum results were factored into the Liberal polling methodology over-inflating support for Mr Dutton among Labor's 'No' voters.
The second reason is that Gen Y and millennial voters are notoriously difficult to poll because many don't answer unknown numbers on mobile phones.
The third reason was that the Liberal Party didn't poll in Mr Dutton's seat in the final weeks of the campaign as it was thought it wasn't necessary as they were 'throwing everything' at the seat anyway.
After 24 years in parliament, voters in Dickson then hit the eject button on Mr Dutton's political career on Saturday night.
He never saw it coming.
'Briggs is an unflushable turd,'' a former Liberal staffer complained.
'His previous marginal seat campaigning involved losing his own seat.'
Liberal polling never had Mr Dutton projected to form a majority government. Picture: Richard Dobson / Newswirethe
Liberal polling never predicted a majority
Despite Mr Dutton's confident predictions he could win the election, news.com.au has confirmed the polling he was briefed on never had him in a position to form a majority government.
At the beginning of the campaign, it did show a projected seat count high 60s.
'Never in the campaign did we have him winning a majority,'' a Liberal campaign source said.
It then dropped down into low 60s and mid 60s or eight to ten seats. He needed twenty to win.
When news.com.au published Labor polling on the Thursday before the election showing Labor expected a range of 72-78 seats the Liberals were pleased and thought it 'credible' and in line with their own polling.
'They are seeing what we are seeing,'' a campaign source said.
'The last track poll had undecided at one in six voters.'
'The most likely reason we got it wrong has got to be something to do with a late swing.'
'Poll murder-suicide confirmed'
Mr Dutton's decision to back the No vote in the referendum was hailed as strategic genius by the Liberal supporters, but they now believe it set the scene for a catastrophic outcome at the election.
It also contributed to the Coalition breaking with their long-time pollsters.
CT Group, the polling outfit founded by Mark Textor and Lynton Crosby, was the Liberal Party's go-to pollsters for more than 20 years.
It went on to propel David Cameron, Boris Johnson and John Howard to power.
Mr Textor was also a Yes23 director who attacked Mr Dutton's No vote stance arguing that there was 'no electoral benefit in being a No wrecker' in September, 2023.
After a Newspoll published by The Australian showed support for the voice falling to 36 per cent and Peter Dutton's approval ratings at record lows, Mr Textor said this on Facebook.
'So, poll murder-suicide confirmed. No electoral benefit in being a 'no' wrecker, worse it's just sure death. As I predicted.'
In the months after the referendum in October, 2023, Mr Dutton told colleagues that he has lost faith in the legendary pollster's judgement.
Originally published as How Peter Dutton destroyed the Liberal Party