Liberal leader must never be allowed to run election campaign again after Peter Dutton: secret review

The Liberal Party leader must never be allowed to run the party’s election campaign again. That is the top recommendation of an internal review of the 2025 election the party tried to keep secret.

“Just as you should never be your own barrister in a court of law, the Parliamentary Leader must never be his own campaign director,” recommendation one of the 64-page document states.

“The Party must never again allow the Parliamentary Leader and Office to effectively run the campaign.”

The review by ex-MPs Pru Goward and Nick Minchin largely blamed “the worst campaign the Party has ever fought” on the decision by then leader Peter Dutton to centralise decision making in his office, cutting out federal Liberal director Andrew Hirst.

They recommend the party’s constitution be rewritten to confirm the head office is in charge of campaigning. In typical elections, the party leader is the chief spokesman and party officials are responsible for day-to-day operations, including policy launches, advertising and polling.

Blamed each other

Another of the 17 recommendations is that the leader be accompanied during the campaign by a senior MP to provide advice and feedback from other Liberal MPs. Mr Dutton’s decision to not follow this common practice was portrayed as an example of his isolation and determination to micro-manage the campaign, including asking his pollster for policy advice while ignoring policies written by shadow ministers.

After being told that Mr Dutton and Mr Hirst did not meet often and had a distant relationship, the review said the federal director should attend all meetings of the shadow cabinet and Liberal MPs.

Both men appeared to blame each other for their poor relationship.

“The Federal Secretariat was concerned that the Leader was not engaging on strategy and message; the Leader did not believe the Federal Secretariat was executing the mechanics satisfactorily,” the document states. “The Federal Director observed that the Leader’s chief of staff would seek to direct campaign decision making for which he did not have responsibility.”

The review suggests Mr Hirst should have threatened to quit if Mr Dutton continued to ignore his advice and his senior staff persisted in “usurping” his role.

“In the case of this broken relationship, neither demanded the resignation of the other, unlike one former Federal Director, who had occasionally threatened to resign (once doing so in writing) when he felt the Leader was overriding his advice,” the report says.’

‘Incoherent’ policies

The party’s federal executive on Friday decided would not be made public. A copy was leaked to The Nightly on Saturday.

Speaking in Canberra today, Liberal leader Angus Taylor said he wanted party’s head office to turn the review into an “action plan” that he would make public. “From here on in, I’m about looking forward,” he said.

The review states that sometimes Mr Dutton, travelling with his key aides on an air force jet, flew to different place than had been decided on that morning during calls with campaign organisers. Given little notice, head office could not screen the new locations for problems, such as the likely presence of hostile members of the public.

The report makes recommendations to improve the party’s processes for devising policies, which it said were “incoherent”. Shadow ministers complained “they had done substantial policy development but that it disappeared into the Leader’s Office and mostly did not reappear”, the report says.

Instead of years or careful preparation, policies were decided by Mr Dutton’s office a few hours or days before they were announced. In some cases, campaign headquarters found out the day before, making it difficult to produce publicity material, including online ads.

“Candidates or senators reported they could be rung by the Leader’s office and required to attend a policy launch without knowing the detail of the policy until the last moment and again with little notice,” the report says.

One example was the Coalition’s domestic and family violence policy, which was launched in country Tasmania nine days before election day.

The Liberal senator responsible for the prevention of family violence, Kerrynne Liddle, was given a few hours to travel from South Australia. Sussan Ley, the deputy Liberal leader and spokesperson for women, scrambled to get there in time for a press conference.

Liberals in the state warned no stories about family violence had been recently published or broadcast that would drive interest in the policy, which promised $20 million for a women’s shelter in New South Wales — and no funding in Tasmania.

“This funding decision was reportedly made without reference to the shadow minister and there was no explanation for why Tasmania was chosen when the shadow minister, if asked, would have been able to suggest a more suitable event and location,” the report says. “It is doubtful it impacted on a single vote.”

In their recommendations, Ms Goward and Mr Minchin state the party leader needs to “account for the development of sound policy to the Party”.

Polling problems

They described serious polling problems. In previous campaigns, opinion polls were commissioned by head office, which used the results to decide where to spend money on advertising, adjust messages and send volunteers. The federal director was responsible for sharing bad polling results with the leader.

In the 2025 campaign, Mr Dutton personally rang the party’s pollster, Mike Turner of Freshwater Strategy, for “advice on messaging and strategy”, according to the review. Based on the results of the Indigenous Voice referendum, Freshwater overestimated the Coalition’s support.

In five NSW seats, Bennelong, Gilmore, Patterson, Robertson and Werriwa, Freshwater put the Coalition head by 54 to 46 per cent. The true figure was almost the opposite. The Liberal Party didn’t win one.

“The party must never again rely on one polling firm for market research, as occurred in 2025,” the review recommends. “The pollsters engaged by the party are answerable to the Federal Campaign Director and must not be allowed to have a direct line to the Party Leader, without the express knowledge and approval of the Federal Director.”

Despite recording the lowest vote in the party’s history, no one in the party took appears to have responsibility or admitted they did anything wrong.

“There was little feedback from those decision-makers in this campaign about their own shortcomings,” the report says. “While every submission criticised the actions of other decision-makers and provided examples, there was a notable absence of reflection on how a decision-maker, that is a campaign director, paid official, MP or candidate, could have done better.”