‘Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.’
It’s the kind of quote that makes your eyes roll – insipid, overused, and reserved for a crinkled old poster hanging at the back of a third-grade classroom. But Peter Dutton’s failure to heed these words is precisely why the Coalition is going to lose the 2025 federal election.
By aligning himself with the Prime Minister on a number of key issues, the Opposition Leader has diluted the identity of his own party and ensured that the global anti-incumbency tsunami will not reach Australian shores on May 3rd.
If you’re like me, you would have already visited the ABC’s vote compass: a questionnaire designed to help voters work out where they stand relative to each party, and where the parties stand relative to each other. Of the 30 election-defining issues identified by the ABC, the major parties broadly concur on 16.
An opposition’s most fundamental obligation is to offer voters an alternative path forward. Although there is no sense in disagreeing for the sake of disagreement, Albanese and Dutton are coming across as two buddies who share a vision and differ only on the fine-print.
More alarming than the lack of differentiation is the fact that Peter Dutton has abandoned the policy pillars that should define the Liberal Party. His housing policy is an affront to economic logic; instead of cutting red tape, reforming zoning laws, and supercharging supply, he has sourced inspiration from Labor’s demand-side handbook.
He has also reversed his commitment to fiscal discipline, vacillated on China, and remained conspicuously silent about the ongoing assault against biological reality.
Even the Coalition’s flagship nuclear proposal – perhaps the biggest point of difference for the upcoming election – rests on a tacit acceptance of the prevailing narrative. There has been no acknowledgment of the hard truths: that Net Zero by 2050 is an arbitrary target with an arbitrary deadline, that Australia accounts for just one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, that we are asleep to the threat of energy poverty (especially because cold weather claims 13 times as many Australian lives as hot weather), that the exorbitant costs of the energy transition will hit the working class the hardest, or that prosperity is the best defence against extreme weather events.
There is no clearer example of economic self-sabotage than a hasty upheaval of the energy mix. It will make us poorer – and therefore less equipped to deal with rising temperatures – while doing little to reduce global emissions. Instead of exposing this reality, the opposition has offered an alternative shrouded in regulatory, financial, and logistical uncertainty.
Perhaps Peter Dutton fears that climate hysteria has reached the point where rational discussion is no longer possible. And perhaps he’s right. But in acquiescing to the doomsayers, he has lost both sides of the aisle – the pragmatists feel that he has caved to the pressure while the alarmists still believe that his stance is too soft.
Since day one, the opposition’s campaign strategy has been devoid of courage. By trying too hard to win over his detractors, Dutton has cast genuine doubt into the minds of traditional conservatives. A campaign that needed an unapologetic commitment to economic security, individual liberties and equality of opportunity has devolved into a confused mess.
Whether it’s because Dutton has been spooked by comparisons with Trump or overwhelmed by his adversaries’ scare campaigns, one thing is for certain: the Liberals are in the midst of an identity crisis. And nothing draws the ire of voters more than a party that doesn’t know what it stands for.
As Peter Dutton heads back to the drawing board, he would do well to recall the vigour with which he opposed the Voice to Parliament in 2023. Despite the guilt-tripping, fear-mongering and moral grandstanding of the ‘yes’ campaign, Dutton stood firm in his messaging: racial division has no place in the constitution.
The nation agreed.
Australians aren’t terribly complicated. We abhor false demonstrations of virtue. We admire straight shooters. We lament indecisiveness. And we have a soft spot for candidates who are up for a fight.
The Liberal Party has won two-thirds of federal elections since its inception in 1944 because it has consistently articulated its policy positions with conviction and poise. The world has changed considerably in that time, but the recipe for victory remains the same.
On this occasion, they’ve missed the boat.
The views expressed in this article are my own.