The Dutton-Kreuger effect
The nomination of Peter Dutton to leader of the Coalition has seen a shift into uncharted political territory
The stunning result from the recent election has delivered a new government, following a stark repudiation of LNP politics. The Coalition has copped a broadside to its fundamental base, losing six of its once impregnable blue-ribbon seats. Peter Dutton takes the leadership unopposed, overseeing a new de-moderated political landscape and a paradigmatic ideological shift within the coalition.
On QandA, a few days before the election was called, for some reason the ABC invited Gideon Rozner from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) on the program to make squares into circles. Apart from being gifted precious airtime by the public broadcaster to potentially sprout ideological nonsense, Gideon used the opportunity, like many of his ilk, to charm the mainstream audience. And he didn’t waste it. “Scott Morrison would have to be in my opinion the worst Prime Minister the Liberal Party has put up since Billy McMahon, except that Billy McMahon had principles”, Gideon said to rapturous applause and excited laughter from host, Virginia Trioli.
He did an impressive job staying within the narrow strips of Venn overlap the IPA shares with the Australian diaspora, keeping his message within the realm of common possibility and avoiding some of the more zero-sum ideological fundamentals that float his boat. Amongst all the disingenuous populism, he mentioned something that stood out. Towards the end of an accommodating and friendly program, he smiled as he said that the future for the LNP “is not in Pt. Piper, but in Parramatta”.
Some say Tony Abbott was hard right, but he still sat somewhere on the continuity of the party arc, Dutton presents a true severance with this tradition. Abbott understood the metrics of great power competition and did not dare provoke it for political gain, he was a seemingly daft Rhodes scholar with controversial beliefs and a nasty demeanour, he changed the nature of civility in politics forever, but he wasn’t an out of depth former junior-police-officer with a nascent and uneducated ideology encased in a stubbornly fatal fake-it-to-you-make-it attitude. Abbott pushed the boundaries of convention and acceptance, but he did it with the consciousness of those that ran the party before him, he volunteered in Aboriginal communities and did stuff for charity. He didn’t play politics stoking war with China, and he didn’t walk out in disgust as the nation said sorry to the Stolen Generations. You can’t reinvent that.
Abbott truly believed in the strengths of the broad church, operating his politics within the parameters of the party; Dutton is packing it down into a tent boxing circus, pushing for a brave new ideology on the road to political oblivion.
We saw the pilot episode of this new series in the bunker-like-basement of the Eatons Hill Hotel in Brisbane early in May. In a dark and cosy room, Sky News hammerhead shark Paul Murray, knocked over a few mic stands while trying to see what was in front of him, blurting out a bunch of usual shit about Penny Wong, trans people and ‘blow up clown dolls’, before getting stuck into “fucking Albo” looking like Mark McGowans poodle –Peter Dutton stood patiently to the side, waiting to be interviewed for the main event.
For the first time, the crucible of the Coalition is moving out of NSW and Victoria and finds a different kind of base in Queensland. The home of the Great Barrier Reef and Wet n’ Wild, the birthplace of Pauline Hanson and modern far-right Australian politics, where staffers dress up as Kyle Rittenhouse at cocktail parties, where votes for the far-right alternative parties are high — this is where the party will now call its home.
This new right-wing movement cares no longer for the leafy green aspirations of upwardly mobile Liberals. In fact, some in this new ideology resent the limitations that moderates present as they look to fundamentally rearrange the DNA of this country. With the repudiation at the election result, and the fact the party has bucked further right after some shallow soul-searching, Dutton being handed the reigns “unopposed” signals the end of the party we have known for generations. For all the talk of the impact of the independents on the fabric of our democracy, not as many speak of the spectacular reductionism now being promoted by far-right ideologues in the Coalition.
Economically inexperienced and accompanied by an economic barn fire in Angus Taylor, the Dutton led nu-LNP lose the blue-ribbon firmament, and with it, the mythology of economic prowess that has walked alongside it since Menzies. With Dutton acting like watch-house experience in a cop-shop makes him able to do drastic things such as redefining the relationship with our largest two-way trading partner and sprouting submarine expertise, how will he lean into the complexities of managing an economy in the shifting sands of a pandemic, troubled by war in the midst of a global downturn? With humility?
So, he reinvents his image to the centre, with the aid of the great romance novelists in the press, while careening to the extreme right down an abandoned Queensland mine shaft. The new LNP, Dutton says, “ has become quite estranged from big business” and the party will now focus on the small businesses in the working suburbs of Western Sydney. Taking another disjointed strategic leaf out of the rust-belt strategies that saw Trump into office, but Dutton lacks a Steve Bannon and a large nut-job Christian-right-wing voter demographic. He does have a bunch of unlikable man-children from the IPA like Tim Smith, and has just seen out the door the highest quality talent the party possessed. Talent may be wanting at the LNP.
Lacking sage wisdom, Gideons words now echo unopposed throughout the right-wing apparatus, are made so by the acolytes in the coalition, are now being rolled out as a viable mainstream political vehicle, when in reality, it is a political experiment sitting on the fringe of Australian values. Values expressed without doubt in the results of this recent election. The current shift to the far-right cannot yet be justified when considering the lessons learned after an election – but it has -- the ignorance is with the Coalition for walking out with the ideologues into the deep.
There is no longer any avenue for the moderates in the LNP, the last of it was exhausted in the devastating loss of prestige blue-ribbon in the enclaves. In the great moderate transmigration towards independent candidates, as liberalism cedes to libertarianism, leaving many Australians without a political home, it is once again the job of the lower class, neglected by major parties for two decades, to sift through the predatory right-wing pivot towards Parramatta and all the bluster it entails.
Before we start hearing the Coalition talking more about marginalised working communities in Sydney-Western suburbs, the loss of Kristina Keneally in the division of Fowler, represents the viability of this reasoning. For too long the working-class vote has been taken for granted by Labor, Keneally’s arrogant and disjointed placement attests to that, as the ALP looks to endear itself with new friends at places like the Business Council of Australia, it too leaves the backdoor open in its “red-ribbon” working-class seats, and like the LNP this election, risks estranging the fundamental communities that are supposed to define the party’s values. With a centre-right Labor party and a potential horseshoe far-right LNP movement willing to court this working voter bloc for the first time since Bob Hawke, disenfranchised working voters could be won over by alternative candidates, including teal-inspired working-left independent movements.
If the LNP does a UAP with an LNP Teledex, it will find that with Dutton manning the speed dial, the phones won’t answer like they once did. It seems that despite the repudiation of the Coalition in this election, Dutton and experimental ideologues wish to forge on regardless, preparing their experiment faraway in the tent circus of a once great political party. It also seems that those in situ, including the new leader, wouldn’t have it any other way. They have been preparing for this scenario, the question is, have we?
There is a key difference between Labor and LNP. When Labor loses a federal election, they indulge in some soul-searching. As in searching through what is in their individual and collective souls, to identify the issues and values that matter most to them.
When the LNP lose an election, they do a bit of soul-searching. As in 'do we have one?'
And having come up empty-handed, they listen to intellectual gnats like Paul Murray and Peta Credlin, and lurch even further right, by choosing Voldo as their leader.
Past history will show that the Libs are as capable as Labor of floundering in Opposition. Remember the years of Peacock vs Howard, with Downer providing comedy relief?
I wouldn't accuse the Libs of spending much time on policy development. Any policies they intend to implement are lifted from the IPA playbook, and usually hidden from view as far as possible. Howard's demise over Work Choices reinforced the folly (from their point of view) of sharing their intentions with the electors.
They have enjoyed quick returns to office by being unrelentingly critical of Labor - often, dishonestly so, with the help of media allies.
But Morrison did such a thorough job of trashing the brand, and exposing the myth of superior management, no amount of media help will lift Dutton into The Lodge.
Add what I believe should be a raft of ex-LNP ministers facing charges arising from NACC hearings, they should be seen as unelectable for at least a decade.
Of course, extended periods of one-party rule aren't healthy. If Labor goes off the rails eventually, I suspect Australia won't turn to LNP, but oblige Labor to govern in a coalition or minority government, with Greens and teals and other indies holding the balance of power.