JENI O’DOWD: Peter Dutton has finally found found his groove, but is it too little too late?

Peter Dutton began his campaign so devoid of vision that it made Anthony Albanese’s costly promises look appealing.

At one point, it seemed destined to go down as one of the Coalition’s worst election campaigns ever.

It began with echoes of Donald Trump’s hardline playbook: attacks on “woke” education, promises to slash 41,000 public service jobs, and populist chest-thumping designed to appeal to a narrow base. But within weeks, it all began to unravel.

Three years ago, voters delivered a stinging rebuke to the Morrison government — a comprehensive rejection from its traditional heartland: educated professionals, climate-conscious urban voters and women.

Australians made it clear they were done with the Coalition’s arrogance and indifference. And yet, astonishingly, in 2025, the Liberals were campaigning as if nothing ever changed.

Even traditional Liberal voters were struggling to support the Coalition. This was not because they had abandoned economic responsibility (Labor’s endless billion-dollar promises are enough to trigger anxiety, given the nation’s mounting debt) but because it was impossible to pinpoint what Peter Dutton stood for.

And the polls have clearly showed this.

Here’s a bloke who wants nuclear power plants — nothing wrong with that — but where’s the detailed plan? Then he casually dismissed how modern Australia operates and tried to scrap working from home for public servants.

But mid-campaign, he reversed it. Why? Because polling, especially among women, showed it was wildly unpopular. He’s since shifted to a more moderate tone, talking up tax offsets and cost-of-living relief such as fuel excise cuts.

But if you believe in something, don’t back flip under pressure. That’s not leadership. And in these turbulent times, Australians are desperate for strength, not spin.

This is why the official campaign launches over the weekend mattered more than most, where both leaders offered sharply different visions.

Albanese promised 100,000 new homes for first-home buyers and a $1000 automatic tax deduction for workers while criticising the Coalition for veering into US-style politics.

Dutton countered with a $1200 tax offset, a temporary 25c cut to fuel excise and a crackdown on foreign property buyers.

He reaffirmed his plan to slash immigration by 100,000 places a year, promising to prioritise skilled migrants in the construction sector.

This policy aims to ease housing demand, but Dutton quickly positioned it as both a housing fix and a workforce strategy, targeting builders and tradies critical to unlocking supply.

Dutton’s campaign launch has been broadly well received. His mortgage tax deduction policy and stricter stance on immigration signalled a sharper focus on affordability and national security.

Even critics conceded the Coalition leader found his stride in a campaign that had, until now, lacked definition.

And that was sorely needed.

At the weekend, Liberal frontbencher Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price stood up at a Perth rally and declared, “We can make Australia great again”.

Yes, really.

“We have incredible candidates right around the country that I’m so proud to be able to stand beside and to ensure that we can make Australia great again, that we can bring Australia back to its former glory, that we can get Australia back,” she enthused.

It was a jaw-dropping moment — not just because of the Trumpian phrasing but also because it revealed that parts of the Liberal campaign remain wildly out of touch with modern Australia.

Only last month, a survey by The Australia Institute found that 31 per cent of Australians consider Donald Trump the greatest threat to world peace — more than Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping.

He still has an enormous lot of work to do. But since the weekend, Dutton has looked like a real contender for the first time in this campaign.

Over half of respondents said his re-election would be bad for the world. Among Australian women, 56 per cent said they feel less secure since Trump returned to the White House, while just 13 per cent feel safer.

Given those numbers, Price’s parroting of one of Trump’s most iconic slogans was politically tone-deaf, if not downright stupid, considering Dutton himself had earlier pulled the campaign back from the Trump-adjacent brink.

Dutton’s campaign shows new signs of lift-off after a sharper, more confident performance in recent days — bolstered by a well-received campaign launch speech and a string of policy announcements.

But it was his swift and unflinching response to reports of a potential Russian air base just 1300km from Australia that marked a shift—despite the Albanese Government later insisting the claims were untrue.

While Albanese sought “clarity” from Indonesia and stumbled through awkward exchanges with the press, Dutton, a former Defence Minister, seized the moment to frame it as a failure of diplomacy at the highest levels.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Indonesia had made it “very clear” they were not contemplating a Russian base—but significantly, refused to confirm whether a request from Moscow had been made in the first place.

Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese’s spending spree understandably alarms voters who are anxious about debt and economic instability.

And the prospect of a Labor-Greens alliance, complete with wealth taxes and radical energy policies, is a genuine worry for mainstream Australia.

In his recent National Press Club address, Greens leader Adam Bandt laid out his conditions for backing a minority Labor government: integrating dental care into Medicare, halting all new coal and gas projects and a nationwide rent freeze.

“We will use our balance of power,” he thundered. And nobody doubts he means it.

The Greens also unveiled a $46.5 billion plan to make all higher education — university and TAFE — free, promising to pressure Labor to deliver it if they hold the balance of power.

The massive spending pledge, aimed squarely at younger voters, follows the party’s call last week to abolish negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts.

While the Greens claim higher taxes on big corporations could cover the cost, the Parliamentary Budget Office has warned the figures are highly uncertain and based on shaky assumptions.

Voters are being squeezed between a big-spending Labor Government willing to cosy up to the Greens and a Coalition that, until recently, seemed unsure of its own direction.

Many Australians want to vote Liberal. They want a voice of reason, aspiration and fiscal responsibility — especially as Labor’s alliance with the Greens promises higher taxes, spiralling debt and a radical energy agenda that spooks the mainstream.

For the first few weeks, Peter Dutton failed to offer that choice. But something shifted this week.

He still has an enormous lot of work to do. But since the weekend, Dutton has looked like a real contender for the first time in this campaign.

And that could change everything.