If I were an evil genius hellbent on destroying the Liberal party once and for all, I would conjure into being a leader that was a lot like Peter Dutton.
I’d merge the knee-jerk, reactionary fervour of Tony Abbott with the narcissism of Scott Morrison, infusing him (and it would definitely be a “him”) with the personal charm of a Bjelke-Petersen-era drug cop.
Then I’d strap myself in and watch my creation go about wrecking the joint.
One of the untold stories of the first seven months of the Albanese government is the abject mediocracy of the opposition leader. The latest Guardian Essential Report shows that Dutton came to the job with a low regard, which is now congealing into locked-in animosity.
These ratings are dire, belying a total lack of connection between the leader and key elements of the broader community. By way of context, these numbers are worse than those attached to Morrison as he drove his government off the cliff.
Now like Louise to Sco-Mo’s Thelma, Dutton is carrying on as though the last election was just an unfortunate pothole rather than a sign that something has gone badly awry with the Liberal party’s political roadmap.
Coming to the leadership as a self-styled “hardman”, Dutton is best known for dispensing cruelty to the most vulnerable with a tad too much relish and banging the drums of war just a little too vigorously.
Colleagues insist he is a good guy once you get to know him, but his rare attempts to smile suggest he has been skimping on the Metamucil while his candid off-mic moments have seen him cracking jokes about Pacific Island leaders, trivialising climate action and dubbing a feisty journalist a “mad witch”.
Granted, it’s never easy leading a government into opposition; there has not been a leader who has seen their party back to government in the past century, leaving a graveyard of broken dreams for those who grasped the poisoned chalice, from Sneddon to Whitlam, Peacock to Beazley, Nelson to Shorten.
But in all these political flameouts, never was there a serious question about whether the party would continue to exist. A separate dataset collected over our past two polls shows the Liberal base is – literally – in mortal danger.
The Coalition’s voting base is ageing. The staunchest supporters are the interwar generation, now aged in their late 70s and 80s, while their takeup with gen Z and millennials is closer to that of a minor party.
Glib platitudes about voters becoming more conservative as they age miss the point: any movement among ageing voters is more likely between Greens to Labor, while the ageing boomers are showing little appetite in turning right.
These structural challenges are exacerbated by the age breakdown around the totemic political battle of 2023 with support for the Indigenous voice to parliament showing Dutton being wedged even more awkwardly.
These numbers paint a stark cultural divide between generations who came of age acknowledging country and those whose loyalty to the crown was part of their DNA.
While some media commentators are portraying a yes campaign as being in disarray, the reality is that even after the noise of Dutton’s cynical demand for details, the Alice Springs panics and the Invasion Day sovereignty protests, support for constitutional recognition is solid.
In reality, it is Dutton who is straddling the proverbial rabbit-proof fence, wedged between his diminishing heartland of ageing refuseniks and the younger generations keen to embrace the opportunity to go beyond Acknowledgement of Country and walk forward in history.
The challenge with the Uluru statement from the heart is it needs to be received by entities with functioning organs, not a sclerotic carcass of a political party operating with only a single wing.
Dragged to his right by a National party which is itself chasing Hanson’s tail and the howls of the After Dark Greek chorus, Dutton appears incapable of acting in either the national interest, his self-interest or, most profoundly, the interest of the party he leads.
In playing spoiler, Dutton is refusing not one, but two generous invitations to rise above this mire: the first is from First Nations leaders to walk towards a history that is not afraid to confront our past; the second from a prime minister who would much rather deliver constitutional recognition through a partnership than through partisanship.
If Dutton does decide to take the negative option – and the tenor of his interventions appear to suggest he is heading that way – the implication will be profound.
He will sacrifice what few remaining progressive members he has to the teals, while entrenching their hold on the metropolitan seats whose constituents are the strongest supporters of constitutional recognition.
His obfuscation and the keening and yelping of his contracting base will deal him out of the national moment of goodwill that a yes vote will deliver the nation.
And should the referendum fail, Dutton will go down in history as the man who lacked the heart to accept the generous invitation embedded in the Uluru statement – to walk forward together.
Having turned his back on bipartisanship, Dutton is now poised to lose either way the referendum goes.
Peter Lewis is an executive director of Essential, a progressive strategic communications and research company
