Conservatives are crying out online for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to go ‘full Trump’, or at least ‘a little bit Trump’, but they would probably settle for a ‘tad Trump’ at this stage of desperation.

Yesterday I asked on The Spectator Australia Facebook account, ‘Should Peter Dutton be more like Trump?’ and almost all of the 143 replies were some version of, ‘Heck yeah!’

There is an appetite for Trump-inspired conservatism in Australia. Not only should we embrace it, we desperately need it to manifest to prevent the rapid growth of bizarre extremists who, in despair at the decline of their nation, are embracing toxic ideas instead of returning to the roots of common sense. Those people can be rescued from the edge. All they want is a restoration project.

Sadly, as some of our readers have pointed out, ‘Dutton knows he doesn’t have to do anything to win the election.’

He is sailing through on the ‘least worst’ ship, refusing to champion any cause more radical than ‘Australia Day Good’.

Voters want more than that.

They want more than a battle to the bottom of the Canberra swamp.

Voters want a leader prepared to take out the broom and sweep away all the spiders, bureaucrats, and lobbyists paralysing the political class with poisonous activism.

Pulling out of the Paris Agreement is a sure thing for Dutton, but he cannot do it. Not only is he duct-taped to Net Zero by the moderates within the party, there is simply too much money, too many promises, and too many future jobs awaiting those in the Coalition ranks. Just as universities churn out kerchief-wearing green activists, our political system produces board members for mysterious foreign companies.

Also, admitting that Climate Change was a bit cult-ish and dogmatic requires an apology.

‘So sorry we told you the world was going to end last election… We thought you would vote for us if we promised to capture carbon, or something. Forgive and forget?’

Forgiveness would depend upon the speed at which the energy bills start falling.

What about the World Health Organisation? No one likes those control freaks who sit knee-deep in American cash, plotting the next pandemic response with their comrades, Big Pharma.

Who is going to glue themselves to a patch of bitumen and weep about the injustice of a world without Tedros?

No one.

Conservatives will certainly come out of the woodwork to vote, though, which makes Dutton’s refusal to throw so much as a mild criticism at the WHO bizarre.

Given the Coalition oversaw the pandemic, are they afraid that showing any amount of regret or honesty about the failures of that era will dredge up nasty memories with voters who might flock, once again, to the freedom parties? Take note, Mr Dutton, not a single victim of the Coalition’s Covid policies has forgotten what happened. Empty words mean nothing to voters. When Trump deleted the WHO from his contacts list, the American people forgave his role in Operation Warp Speed. Dutton could do that too.

What about biological gender?

Yesterday, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order protecting women’s sports while surrounded by smiling women and girls. That image has made it impossible for the Democrats (and unwise for the mainstream press), to run any sort of ‘Trump is anti-women’ line. Trump has erected that picture of joy as an impregnable wall. Never has the demand to allow biological men to compete against biological women looked more ridiculous.

The Coalition’s softly-softly, let’s be nice and peaceful and huggy with everyone approach will never produce a promotional image with such power.

Just over a month ago, Peter Dutton was questioned directly about the Coalition’s position on biological sex and sport. This was his non-answer:

‘Australia is a sovereign nation and as Prime Minister I’ll act in our country’s best interests, and I’ll make decisions that I think are in the best interest of all Australians. We don’t have any plans to change our position in relation to that issue.’

To quote Hugh Abbott from The Thick of It: ‘I categorically did not knowingly not tell the truth. Even though unknowingly I might not have done.’

Sall Grover, CEO of Giggle for Girls, called Peter Dutton out on this yesterday in her article, Dutton’s disunity: why the fight for sex-based rights is his to lose.

She made it clear that ‘this is not a culture war issue, nor is it some niche obsession of right-wing conservatives’ and that Dutton’s response to ‘follow Trump’s lead and affirm the reality of biological sex in law was to dismiss it, claiming that Australia should be “kind and inclusive”’.

Maybe Peter Dutton’s ears were burning, because at a recent press conference he appeared to suddenly be (or perhaps the party allowed him to be) in support of Donald Trump’s ban on men in women’s sport, insisting it is ‘not in the spirit of sport’.

Although the full answer to Peta Credlin is a bit more swampish:

‘I think it is one of those debates that we have to be honest in, and it’s not about discriminating against anyone, including young girls. I just don’t believe in discriminating against anyone, not on the basis of anything, and for young girls not to be able to achieve their Olympic dream, their pathway to a World Cup, or to be displaced from a team, because, you know, somebody has a physiological advantage over them. I just don’t think that is in the spirit of the sport.’

It is so unnecessarily convoluted and misses the primary point, yes people should be discriminated against. Fair sport relies upon biological discrimination. It is a good thing, not something to shy away from with wet language. And it is not a ‘physiological advantage’, it is called ‘being a bloke’.

He did a little better than the former Health Department on the definition of a woman.

‘We know that there are two sexes, and we know that, you know, for many families, for different reasons, this is a very confronting debate. I mean, I respect somebody’s privacy, their privacy, of their sexuality, of their situation, and that is paramount to me, but again, we have to have a society which respects parental rights and the rights of children to be innocent.’

Someone should invent a name for whatever language this is.

Let us compare the above to Donald Trump.

‘The war on women’s sports is over! My administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes.’

That is pretty clear. That is what voters are looking for – someone who speaks Trump with an Aussie accent.