Dutton’s political tactics are no governing agenda

But let’s get real here. Nineteen months after being turfed out of office, the Coalition has made up ground as Labor is marked down amid the cost-of-living crisis – which remains by far voter’s No. 1 concern – and the aftermath of the failure of the Indigenous Voice referendum. Yet, the polls still suggest that the best the Coalition can hope for, which would be the worst outcome for the country, is Labor being forced into minority government at the next election, due in early 2025.

With no real plan for winning back the six formerly safe Liberal Party inner-city heartland seats won by Teal independents last year, there appears to be no realistic prospect at this point of achieving Mr Dutton’s declared aim of a one-term return to government. More importantly, the Coalition’s political tactics, such as petty weaponising of the prime minister’s necessarily busy overseas travel schedule, is offering no genuine governing strategy to deal with the big challenges Australia faces, such as net zero, productivity and budget repair.

Where’s the policy?

The Coalition has seized on voters’ power bill shock to push the small nuclear reactor option to generate affordable, reliable and zero-emissions electricity. Yet, it has also revived the climate wars by opposing Labor’s expansion of the Abbott government’s de facto carbon price safeguard mechanism to help drive the lowest-cost, most efficient decarbonisation of the economy.

Australia needs to reverse its post-pandemic productivity slump to help the Reserve Bank finish the job of bringing inflation down. But apart from opposing Labor’s retro union-ordered workplace re-regulation, the Coalition has no real industrial relations policy to speak of to help lift enterprise-level productivity. On the budget, the Coalition accuses Labor’s “over-spending” of adding to inflation. But it has not backed restoring the medium-term fiscal framework of balanced budgets over the economic cycle that the Morrison government ditched during the pandemic.

The problem for the country with the Coalition’s tactics of opposing much and proposing little is that the political heat is not being put on Labor to genuinely revamp its policy approach in the new year.

Off the back of mid-year economic and fiscal outlook showing the budget is most likely on track for a second small surplus in a row, Jim Chalmers used last week’s interview with The Australian Financial Review to talk up the prospect of Australia following the US back to low inflation and lower interest rates next year. What this upbeat assessment underscored was Dr Chalmers’ concern that responsible economic management will be the election-swinging issue.

With our poll showing Labor has now ceded its rating as the better economic manager as the cost-of-living issue bites, the treasurer is out there rebranding various government initiatives as Labor’s plan to “modernise our economy”.

But this is just a poll-driven political exercise to try to paper over Labor’s lack of a fair dinkum economic reform agenda, which is a bipartisan problem shared with Mr Dutton and the Coalition.