ELLEN RANSLEY: As the clock ticks on Dutton’s campaign, has he left his run too late on big-ticket policy?

It’s the third quarter in the federal election campaign, and Peter Dutton is kicking against the wind. Some commentators believe it’s all over for the Opposition Leader. But just like in some of the best sporting games — including his hometown Brisbane Lions’ triumphant semi-final win over the GWS Giants last September — it’s not over until the final siren sounds.

To perform such a feat, however, will require enormous discipline. Especially over the upcoming 10 days where the three public holidays will disrupt the electorate’s focus. There is not enough time left on the clock for a total reset, his best hope is to dig deep and fight — and pray his opponent makes some major mistakes.

Mr Dutton’s focus, Liberal sources and strategists say, must be on perfectly executing his arguments and hitting the seats where he is truly competitive.

Anthony Albanese’s rebound in the polls doesn’t mean everything, especially to MPs and insiders on both sides who remember — either fondly or painfully — the 2019 results. Yaron Finkelstein, former chief political adviser to Scott Morrison, says Bill Shorten’s loss at the unlosable election “is a perfect reminder to be careful of not getting too far ahead of yourself”.

Apart from Mr Albanese’s slightly hubristic declaration he’d run for a third term if he wins on May 3, the Prime Minister has largely heeded this warning. He has said publicly on numerous occasions he “has a mountain to climb” this campaign.

The same is true for his opponent, but he has so far struggled to find the momentum he needs. He entered the campaign believing it was his for the taking but is not getting the goals.

Mr Dutton’s first week stumbles, the work from home backflip, a handful of own-goals, and his admission this week that he made a “mistake” in verballing the Indonesian President have all contributed to a poor campaign. The friction between Mr Dutton’s team and the campaign unit, talked about by several sources, hasn’t helped either.

The back-to-back long weekends are not ideal for him. Many people will be tuned out, and campaigning takes a back seat on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Anzac Day.

In amongst that, pre-polling starts on Tuesday.

An estimated three to four per cent of voters are expected to cast their ballots each day of the two-week period. Political marketing expert Andrew Hughes says Mr Dutton has run out of road.

“This time next week, more than ten per cent of the country will have voted,” Dr Hughes said.

“The Coalition can have a great next two weeks, be as good as you can be, but millions have already voted and by then it’s too late.”

There are concerns within the ranks he left many of his big policy announcements too late and they are too hard to sell.

Mr Dutton at Wednesday night’s debate said he wanted affordable energy to be his legacy: his gas reservation policy followed by nuclear. Nuclear has largely been omitted in this campaign, and the gas policy — announced in his budget reply — was out without crucial detail for more than 10 days. Punters still don’t fully grasp how it will benefit them.

Their latest housing offering — the tax-deductible mortgage policy — is also difficult for voters to understand. His vagueness around public service cuts hasn’t helped either.

The Coalition knows the most punter-friendly policy they have is cheaper petrol. That’s why Mr Dutton has been to so many in the past fortnight.

Yet despite asserting the Coalition will be better for Australia’s hip pockets; in offering billions of dollars in spending without the savings or structural reforms to offset them, they have undermined their own title as better economic managers.

The Donald Trump comparison has also hurt Mr Dutton. As outgoing Labor MP Graham Perrett said on Thursday afternoon, the Opposition Leader “put the orange bronzer on for a while, but he’s been trying to scrape it off”.

After wading into culture-war issues earlier in the debate, where vowed to tackle the “woke agenda” in schools, Mr Dutton was more disciplined on Thursday when he didn’t bite on a question about how he defines a woman after a British High Court ruling.

Some in his team, however, have not helped. When many MPs and candidates are reporting concerns about the US President is coming up unprompted in their doorknocking campaigns, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price declaring she wanted to “make Australia Great Again” could prove harmful — especially in efforts to claw back some of the progressive flank it lost to the teals in 2022.

Mr Dutton’s shaky answers on climate change in Wednesday’s debate maybe didn’t help the Liberal efforts in some of those seats, but this is not a poll on the environment.

At the end of the day, this is a cost-of-living election.

If Mr Dutton is to convince enough voters in at least 15 seats (which would put him in a minority position) that he is the man for the job, he needs to spend the last 15 days hammering home a perfectly succinct summary of why that is.

As one Liberal said, there is still time for him to do so.

“He can’t afford to steer off message. He must be focused,” they said, while acknowledging the difficulty of the task.

The Coalition believe what Dutton did so well for the last 18 months was frame this election as a “referendum” on Labor’s performance under Mr Albanese over the last three years.

“There is still time to reframe this,” one source said.

Dr Hughes disagrees. He says unless there is an election-defining scandal or error from Mr Albanese, the game is over — and the Coalition will wind up regretting “not spending more of the campaign on the economic narrative” from the get-go.

He said the other nail in the coffin was not putting their policies out there earlier, when they had the momentum in the polls.

“Cut through now, at this point, is hard to get. They want to be where Labor is but it’s difficult to get that momentum up,” he said.

The seats Mr Dutton hits even while much of the electorate is on holidays will be telling. Individual electorate polling can tell a remarkably different story to the national polls, and Mr Dutton’s best bet is to focus on the truly competitive seats.

Mr Finkelstein agreed.

“Even in 2019 while the national polls were showing Labor on track to win, our seat-by-seat polling was of a different colour,” he said.

“It didn’t mean we knew we were definitely going to win, but we could see a different trend.”

The latest RedBridge polling found 14 seats are still too close to call — 10 of which are held by Labor.

Director Tony Barry said even though there’s effectively only 10 days left of campaigning, there’s still time for the Coalition win over some of the “soft vote”.

“If there’s enough repetition and reach of compelling or persuasive messages,” he said, but cautioned even that might not be enough against the ruthlessly disciplined and focused Labor campaign.

Privately, some Liberals believe the only way they will land on top is if there are some significant mistakes from Labor.

But if Mr Dutton and his team are serious about trying to defy the polls and finish this on top, they can’t afford to leave anything on the field.