Peter Dutton’s long-awaited military spending plan was supposed to be the Coalition’s chance to shift the election debate onto the former defence minister’s favoured terrain.

Instead, Dutton ran into yet more questions about his preparation for the election contest as he revealed the plan in a hot defence manufacturing factory in Perth on Wednesday, raising further questions over what his own MPs privately describe as a thin and rushed policy agenda.

“Leaving policies so late is a tactic that belongs in the Howard era, and we haven’t learnt our lesson from last time when Morrison’s super-for-housing policy should have come earlier,” one opposition minister, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss internal party matters, said. “We needed to offer more than just saying we’re not Labor, and we’ve so far failed.”

The Liberal Party’s campaign review found a similar thing happened in 2022, when Scott Morrison made his key announcement on home ownership in the last week of the campaign.

This time, the problem is more acute because early voting has soared since the last election, with 72 per cent more people voting on the first day of pre-poll compared to 2022.

After a stuttering first few weeks of the campaign, Dutton is running out of time to raise his game. His stronger debate performance on Tuesday did not flow through to a period of sustained momentum because contentious remarks on reversing tax cuts were followed by an apparent backflip over EV tax breaks.

Both the defence policy and the mortgage deductibility scheme announced on April 12had support among shadow ministers to be announced weeks or months earlier, according to senior MPs and other party sources who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely.

Dutton pushed back when asked about the delayed timing of the defence policy on Wednesday, saying: “People can argue the politics of it, but the more prudent approach was to see what the bottom line looked like, to make sure that we weren’t promising funny money.”

The Coalition leader has also found himself in an awkward position on income tax because, as this masthead reported in February, he decided against offering income tax relief during a campaign expected to be fought on reining in spending to tame inflation.

“We needed to offer more than just saying we’re not Labor, and we’ve so far failed.”

When Labor surprised Dutton with a small tax cut in the budget just days before the campaign, Dutton opted to offer a halving of the fuel excise. But during the campaign, the party decided it needed a more forceful argument on household budgets so it reached for a Morrison-era idea to offer a $1200 tax rebate announced at the party’s launch.

Party officials said the precise figure and its cost to the budget were still being worked on just hours before its release.

This week, Dutton nominated reversing Labor’s small income tax cut as the way he would pay for his policy commitments. He labelled the tax cuts “recurrent spending”, an unusual way to describe them for the leader of a party philosophically in favour of lower taxes.

Recriminations are also continuing in the party about the reversal of its push to stop public servants working from home. This masthead has learnt that Dutton’s office and opposition ministers raised concerns about the risk of community blowback towards finance spokeswoman Jane Hume’s early March announcement before it was made.

Hume and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor were forced to release a statement on Wednesday afternoon outlining the Coalition’s revenue-raising measures after Dutton’s income tax remarks and days of confusion on whether he planned to reverse Labor’s tax breaks on electric vehicles. Dutton ducked a question about whether Taylor and Hume would keep their portfolios after the election on Thursday.

In the same way as Hume’s work-from-home backflip would create awkwardness for Dutton if she joined him at daily media events, defence spokesman Andrew Hastie dominated Wednesday’s military announcement when he was forced to clarify his earlier views on women in combat roles.

Senior frontbenchers, including Hume, Hastie, Bridget McKenzie, Barnaby Joyce, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, David Coleman and Dan Tehan have all either been fighting tight battles in their seats, made significant blunders, or not served for long periods in their portfolios, making them potentially distracting choices to flank Dutton at press events.

Several Coalition ministers and future ministers either retired or lost their seats to teal candidates in 2022. Albanese has made a virtue of the depth of his cabinet – Mark Butler, Penny Wong, Katy Gallagher and Jason Clare have all taken turns accompanying Albanese on the road.

By the middle of this week, Dutton was at his 13th stop at a petrol station for the campaign, his suit jacket removed and with a couple of his shirt buttons undone.

The bowser stops allow Dutton to talk about his fuel excise plans and add levity to his appearances, showcasing the humour and energy that reflect his off-camera personality. A visit to a rowdy Townsville RSL on Anzac Day showed off a more relaxed leader chatting and laughing with punters. And in press conferences, Dutton engages with reporters at greater length than Albanese, allowing follow-up questions that provide greater scrutiny of his policies.

But other aspects of the Coalition operation are not running as smoothly.

In Coalition circles, there is talk about an allegedly troubled relationship between Dutton’s chief of staff Alex Dalgleish, and the Parramatta-based party officials around federal director Andrew Hirst. Hirst worked for Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull and has run several federal campaigns. Gossip centres on a rift, but several sources say the reports are either exaggerated or false.

A less contentious claim in the party is that Dalgleish and Dutton both have a type of politics based on values and instincts, which can push Dutton away from the centre ground on some issues. Hirst is seen as having a more pragmatic, data-driven focus.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison’s media boss Andrew Carswell raised the alarm about this tension earlier in the campaign, writing in an opinion piece about poor decisions made by “advisers who think they know better than accomplished party bosses, or detachment between the travelling and campaign teams”.

The Coalition’s campaign headquarters and Dutton’s office were contacted for comment.

Party officials at campaign headquarters take over much of the political operation once a campaign begins, including policy announcements and the itinerary, after years of the leader’s office controlling the agenda.

A story in this masthead about the prospect of a referendum on deporting dual nationals caused the newly formed campaign unit in Parramatta to grow worried about the level of discipline and tactical nous in Dutton’s office. Dutton backed the referendum idea, despite the lukewarm reaction of some campaign staffers and shadow ministers.

One senior Liberal source describes some of the leader’s key personnel as the “f--- ’em crew” because of their alleged hostility to party moderates, perceived media enemies, and other forces deemed to be hostile. Such an attitude jars with Dutton’s more conciliatory personal style.

With one week left of the campaign, a narrative of rising support for Labor in national polling is masking some unique trends.

Most polls and the parties’ private research are showing a significant rise in support for One Nation, which recently amended its voting tickets to give more support to Dutton, including in his own marginal seat of Dickson.

The Liberal Party is also picking up unusually strong levels of support in very safe Labor seats such as Gorton and Whitlam, indicating that the shift in working-class outer suburban and regional areas might accelerate even if it does not result in many seats falling to Dutton.

Neither party has major policies left to announce, and Labor is preparing to ramp up its scare campaigns against Dutton. It is also preparing to start spending on ads in Liberal-held seats such as Deakin and Menzies.

With one week until polling day, Dutton could do with a surprise event to turn momentum his way – or a perfect week of campaigning to create a close contest on May 3.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/haven-t-learnt-our-lesson-inside-the-dutton-campaign-as-it-enters-the-final-stretch-20250424-p5lu4q.html

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