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For the first few months after becoming the Labor leader after the party’s shock defeat in the 2019 election, Anthony Albanese maintained his usual Friday morning appearances on Nine’s Today.
Every week, as described by one of Albanese’s advisers, then-Home Secretary Peter Dutton would show up and take off his stuffing as he tried to smile kindly and look like an alternative prime minister.
It was not worth the effort and in August, Albanese was already out, handing over the post to Deputy Leader Richard Marles.
If Peter Dutton should continue to wake up early on Friday to play with Richard Marles of Labor on Nine’s Today is the least of his problems. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Now Dutton, who is almost certain to be confirmed as the Liberal leader on Monday when the battered and forceful party meets in Canberra, faces a similar enigma. But if he should keep waking up early on Fridays to play with Marles in Today is the least of his problems.
After two decades in politics, Dutton’s perceptions as a Conservative right-wing political warrior, a hard-line border protection minister, and more recently a Chinese hawk have been laid as a cement.
Ariadne Vromen, a professor of political sociology at the National University of Australia, says Dutton will have to “cure a divided party and a divided coalition, and create a new person” as the party leader for the Australian public.
“He has to find the problems that unite the people of the outer suburbs and the blue ribbon seats they lost. It could be the cost of living, house prices, economic security, the future of work; to focus on that [the Coalition] They also have to move on from the confrontation campaign and realize that climate change is not class-specific, it is important to most people. “
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Can Dutton soften his image, change personal perceptions, unite a broken party, and thread the political needle between a rising right-wing faction and an exhausted left-wing faction that has just been massacred at the polls?
Labor leader Tanya Plibersek opted for the minstrel this week when she compared Dutton to Voldemort, the villain in the Harry Potter series.
Plibersek quickly apologized for commenting on his appearance, and Dutton noted that he had a medical condition that caused baldness and was therefore “not the prettiest guy.”
Albanese was genuine when he said this week that he had gotten along better with Dutton than former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. But Plibersek’s comments, though overstated, are a first taste of how Labor will try to frame and marginalize Dutton as unfit for a senior position.
Ahead of Monday’s meeting to elect a new Liberal leadership team, the only two MPs who have been nominated are Dutton as leader and Sussan Ley for the role of MP. Dutton is the undisputed favorite as the most prominent Conservative in a party hall now heavily skewed towards the Conservative faction after so many moderates lost their seats to the Greens and Labor.
If successful, Dutton faces a monumental task of restoring the public’s collective perception of him and, at the same time, reuniting his party and making it competitive against the Labor Party and, in its most, the progressive cross bank that will have up to 92 seats, more than the 90 won by Tony Abbott in the landslide of 2013.
A makeover is already taking place, with colleagues testifying that the Dutton “they know” is a pragmatist, rather than a religious conservative; as someone who helped run the postal survey on same-sex marriage; who is not up for war on climate change; who can unite the party; which can focus on cost of living issues and speak clearly to suburbs and regions.
In a statement announcing his candidacy on Wednesday, he highlighted the breadth of his portfolio experience, his view that he would lead the Liberal Party (rather than a moderate or conservative party) and his hope that the Australians now see another face of him, with a statement of support from his wife, Kirilly, and family photos to begin with.
Abbott, the last Liberal to win the coalition government from the opposition, told the headline: “I have nothing but the best wishes and admiration for Peter Dutton. I think he is the best person for the job. and I think he will do very well. “
But it seems likely that the Coalition will get a maximum of 59 seats, which would be its lowest proportion of seats in parliament since it was founded in 1944.
Dutton would be the first Queensland to lead the party and the first non-Sydney leader since 1995.
In 2019, when Dutton tried to overthrow former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, he talked about having a chance to smile more. But it will take more than their pearly whites to change perceptions.
The 2022 election has turned the script and some of the truths of Australian politics upside down, such as that voters like Kooyong, Goldstein, Higgins, Boothby, Mackellar, Wentworth, North Sydney and Curtin are safe Liberal seats.
Peter Dutton, photographed with his family (Harry, wife Kirilly, Rebecca and Tom) wants to project a softer image. Credit: Dan Peled
Morrison’s electoral strategy of leaving these seats while targeting regional and suburban voters, including Corangamite, McEwen, Parramatta, Werriwa, Greenway, Gilmore, Lingiari, and Cowan, was a total failure.
But according to Tony Barry, a consultant and pollster aligned with the Redbridge Liberals who worked for Turnbull in opposition, Dutton would start with internal authority because he is from the right-wing Conservative faction, and will not be caught in a left-right. . internal cultural war.
“Liberals, if the leader is not on the right, are fighting, like [Brendan] Nelson, Turnbull i [John] Hewson, for example. He has this for him, he is pragmatic. He will turn to families and suburbs and small businesses, which is actually the liberal base and from which we have been disconnected, ”says Barry.
“He’s taken a seat in the outer suburbs, he can talk to the out-of-town constituency we have to talk to. There are only seven or eight green seats, but there are dozens of suburban seats we have to win.”
One of the most difficult challenges in the coming months will be deciding which parts of the government’s agenda to support and who to oppose.
The party’s approach to Labor’s climate policy will be instructive. In recent days, former Finance Minister Simon Birmingham has publicly called for a more proactive approach, while Nationals Sen. Matt Canavan has tightened his opposition to supporting zero net emissions by 2050.
The Liberals’ post-election review, launched on Thursday, will help guide the party on this issue.
If Dutton is the pragmatic politician he claims to be, he can try to pull a page out of John Howard’s book as opposition leader in the early days of the Bob Hawke government and pass a slightly more ambitious Labor policy.
The last Australian government and prime minister to serve a single term were Labor and James Scullin, who came to power in 1929 and lost three years later with the Great Depression.
Undoubtedly, national and global economic conditions will be difficult for Albanians and Labor for the next three years. But chances are Dutton will win the prime minister in 2025.
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