The political leader, Peter Dutton, who called the current American president Donald Trump a big thinker, when he proposed to turn a homeland, that is Gaza, into a Disneyland, most probably won’t become PM of Australia on May 3.
The Coalition was not ready to win this election. They made tactical and strategic errors galore, they did not have many detailed big policy options to offer to the electorate, they cornered themselves ideologically further right, from the center right of Australia’s politics, the presidential actions of Trump worked against them. The size of the upcoming federal Labor win, up to a large extent, will be determined by the failures of Peter Dutton’s Coalition…
It is obvious that the leader of the opposition is desperate, now. This is why yesterday and last night at the fourth debate, he came back with his favourite hard right culture war remarks. The Welcome to Country ceremonies are divisive, the ABC and The Guardian are hate media, etc. As others too have pointed out, Dutton has realized that he is losing the election and he is switching into a second preferences strategy. He is appealing to right wing voters in order to get their second references everywhere, but mostly where it matters. In small margin seats held by Labor or Teals candidates. Pauline Hanson and One Nation are already preferencing Dutton…
If Labor is re-elected on Saturday, as all the indicators show, it will be up to a significant degree I believe, because of the defeat of the Voice referendum in October 2023, sadly…
The margin of the defeat of the Voice referendum (60%-40%) and the hopeful polling fortunes of the Coalition after October 2023 and up until recently, were interpreted the wrong way, by Australia’s right wing alliance (political parties, media, business interests and others).
They thought Australia’s individualistic in many ways and middle of the road pragmatic society, had shifted further to the right, in terms of values.
They thought amongst others that, apart from the traditional conservative perceived “attributes”, for example, managing the economy, or defense, the declaration of a culture war would be a significant competitive electoral advantage. Like in some European countries, like the USA, or like in the 2023 referendum campaign.
This assumption made them more extreme and more lazy, in the eyes of mainstream Australia, I think. Then, of course, came the Trump administration to finish them off… The rest is history, as they say…
