The central struggle for the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, this election campaign has been for authenticity, a quality so important electorally he occasionally has been tempted to fake it.
At one point he appeared to pose as an antipodean Donald Trump.
In this version of himself, Dutton was a tough guy defender of the voiceless in Australia, an enemy of bloated government ready to unleash Doge-like cost-cutting on a range of services, and to engage in a culture war offensive against “agendas” in schools.
Trump had his Make America Great Again cap; Dutton’s party has its Australia Back on Track tote.
Even staunch Liberals began to flinch from what sounded like a Mar-a-Lago political menu as voters speculated on what a Dutton Doge would do to pensions, jobseeker, ABC, Medicare and Australia’s other beloved supports.
Opinion polling by YouGov this week shows the dramatic rupture in support for Dutton early this year.
The findings show Dutton was at his worst-ever net satisfaction rating of -15 at the start of this month, down from -2 in February. This meant 38% of voters were satisfied with him but 53% were not.
The director of public data at YouGov, Paul Smith, said the collapse followed “his embrace of controversial Trump-style policies such as banning work-from-home arrangements and proposing to sack 40,000 public sector workers”.
“These actions have clearly impacted his public perception, contributing to a significant drop in satisfaction.”
The critical comparison is that Anthony Albanese’s satisfaction rating was -6. That was 44% satisfied and 50% not.
The popularity decline reflects Dutton’s aggressive personal and public style, as compared with the relative flatness of Albanese. Dutton likes stormy waters. Albanese doesn’t like making waves.
At a time of global disruption, voters might be seeking a calm hand on the tiller.
Dutton has now realised the US president isn’t a suitable model for Australian politics, no matter what his billionaire acquaintances such as Gina Rinehart say.
Australian voters broadly think American politics is nuts at the best of times and menacingly toxic under Trump. Why vote for a wannabe Trump here?
In February Dutton read the mood of the national electorate and on the Nine television network’s 60 Minutes he rejected the idea he was impersonating the US president.
“Well, that might be a Labor line but it’s just not true,” he said.
“I grew up under John Howard’s wing. I worked closely with Peter Costello as assistant treasurer, so I think that’s more my role model than others around the world.”
It didn’t help that also in February, on Nine’s Today program, Liberal frontbencher Michaelia Cash pumped up the Trump likeness: “The American people, they expect action. And that is what they’re getting.
“And they’ll get the exact same attitude under a Peter Dutton government.”
But there was much worse to come to dent Dutton authenticity.
The too-frequent alteration of policy on the run has damaged Dutton’s authority over issues, even when they are issues he has raised as priorities.
He has had so many pratfalls it is becoming difficult for voters to accept he genuinely believes in the policies involved. There are doubts as to whether he knows what he is doing.
The editor-in-chief of the West Australian, Chris Dore, on Friday bluntly put this view in Dutton’s presence:“And frankly, Mr Dutton has, at times, looked a bit punch-drunk since the beginning of the campaign … ”
In a muted echo of Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp” and slash the cost of government, Dutton vowed to reduce the federal public service by 41,000. He just wasn’t sure where or how.
When the mechanics of mass firings – and the effect on services – were rejected, the opposition said numbers would be cut through natural attrition – a non-replacement rule.
Well, that was a silly idea given Dutton had set a five-year timetable for the reductions. So, on Friday this process was bolstered by a voluntary redundancy program, with no immediate calculation of how much it might cost to pay 41,000 people to quit.
“We will cap the size of the Australian public service and we will reduce the numbers back to the levels they were three years ago through natural attrition and voluntary redundancies,” said campaign spokesman James Paterson on ABC Radio National.
The most embarrassing policy shuffle has been the ill-fated Dutton proposal to ban working from home. It was designed to get public servants back into offices but was understandably identified by many privately employed voters as a blanket prohibition across all employment.
Dutton’s clumsy delivery of this proposal, and his failure to foresee how it would anger many women voters forced him to apologise for his “mistake”.
Dutton is now identifying himself as a John Howard Liberal.
But the man who was prime minister for 11 years never felt the need to be someone else, and – right or wrong – was master of his policies.
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