It was one of those comments designed to instil confidence amongst anxious colleagues but instead underscored their biggest concern.
“Well, I don’t think you’ve seen anything yet,” Peter Dutton said on Tuesday, when asked about nervous Liberals.
The problem is, that’s exactly what they’re worried about, almost a week into the campaign.
The opposition leader went on to urge patience.
“Wait until we get into this campaign,” he suggested. The good stuff is coming, apparently.
Perhaps that includes some further detail on the centrepiece policy announced a week ago in Dutton’s budget reply, to drive down gas prices. There’s still no press release, let alone any modelling, to explain exactly how this “gas reservation” policy will work.
We’re told the work’s been done and it clearly shows power bills will be cheaper. Why it’s being withheld, therefore, is a mystery.
In the meantime, the Coalition has spent week one of the campaign slipping behind in the polls. While Dutton keeps his powder dry, the task of winning this election is only getting harder.
Dutton supports PM’s stance on protecting Australians from tariffs.
A Trump-shaped wedge
Donald Trump isn’t making life any easier for Dutton either. Indeed, the opposition leader appears to be caught in a Trump-shaped wedge.
On his right flank and amongst some in the Coalition base, are Trump fans. These are the folks Clive Palmer is courting with his “Trumpet of Patriots”. Dutton doesn’t want to lose them.
At a Sky News Australia “pub test” forum on Monday night in his own seat, Dutton was urged by audience members to deal with high rates of immigration and the “woke agenda” in schools.
Playing to the crowd, he echoed the Trump line about the role of the federal education department: “Why have we got a department of thousands and thousands of people in Canberra called the Education Department if we don’t have a school and don’t employ a teacher?”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is seen in the seat of Dixon during a Paul Murray Pub Test for Sky News Australia (ABC News: Brendan Esposito )
It was a gift for Labor, which didn’t need an invitation to point out all the things the federal department does, while highlighting how similar Dutton’s plans are to the Trump agenda. There’s no disguising this strategy now. Jim Chalmers calls him “DOGE-y Dutton”.
This is the other, much bigger side of the wedge Dutton must contend with: the bulk of voters, who according to opinion polls, are increasingly worried about Trump.
Australian elections are won in the middle, and the middle doesn’t want a replica of Trump or Elon Musk here.
Coalition campaign strategists know this, hence the pivot this week on Trump’s tariffs.
