Peter Dutton was edging towards possibly winning the forthcoming election. But lately he has been moving further and further away from that. It’s possible he might still win but it looks increasingly unlikely.

The problems are manifold.  In between a Trumpian brainfart about holding a referendum which would allow governments to deport some citizens he also claimed that interest rates are always lower under the Coalition because it manages the economy better than Labor. The first claim was hastily walked back by some colleagues but who knows what its status is now?

With interest rates other questions arise because the claim was simply wrong. For instance, are his staff not providing him with accurate data; is he so enamoured of the soundbite that he didn’t bother to check the facts; is he just ignorant; or, is he a liar? It’s not the first time he’s made the claim having also uttered it in May and August last year.

The record is clear, and the claim had been exposed as far back as 2022 when AAP FactCheck debunked the claim.  A loyal Liberal MP, Karen Andrews, jumped in to say the claim was right because RBA historical data on variable rates for homeowners were always lower under the Liberals. This was also false as lending rates were lower under the 2009 Labor Government than they were in the Coalition – 8.6% compared with 10.5% final term. That was of course, under the sainted John Howard.

Then there is the promise to unveil policies before the election and/or after the election – the latter being a new development for Australian political campaigning. In one respect the post-election announcements are consistent with what often happens in Australian politics when the incoming lot claim the outgoing lot had left a bigger mess than expected and harsh measures are now needed to fix it.

So far there have been few pre-election announcements – other than how he would get tough with Donald Trump from day one. Nevertheless, each time the Albanese Government has announced a new policy – mainly in the healthcare and cost of living fields – Dutton has promptly announced they were his policies too. In one case the Opposition announced the new policy while it’s details were actually being provided to the media by Albanese’s staff. So much for considered policy formulation.

Then there is nuclear. Surveys of boys who love boys toys are generally much in favour of nuclear power stations, but the rest of the population is not so sure. The lack of secure costings and the enunciation of a policy involving what would be one the biggest nationalisations in Australian history are obviously problematic. Almost nobody in politics seriously considers government owned nuclear power stations the answer to our power problems. There has never been a nuclear power station built on time and on budget and countries from England to France are struggling to finish plants which are massively overbudget. The CSIRO has also made it clear that nuclear would cost much more.

Nevertheless, Dutton depends on a report from Frontier Economics which claims nuclear is cheaper than the alternatives. Frontier Economics has form in costings as demonstrated by its recent work on the Heathrow Airport expansion plan. Frontier emerged from Australia’s Victora University in Melbourne. It’s finding on Heathrow was that the project would increase potential GDP by 0.43% by 2050. The report focussed on economic and market effects but did not consider environmental or social impacts. A surprising omission for planes and a massive problem for nuclear power stations.

Back in 2018, before the recent Heathrow work, Frontier Economics produced a report on Heathrow titled, The Case for a Third Runway, so it was a very cosy arrangement when it came to revisit the work.

Meanwhile on nuclear, if Dutton’s vision ever came to pass, our great great grandchildren would be facing massive extra costs when the nuclear clean up is required. For instance, the troubled Sellafield site in the UK, home to the world’s largest store of plutonium, needs 3.1 billion pounds to meet Sellafield’s spending needs in the next year and the ultimate cost of the clean up will be 136 billion pounds.

Moreover, some important needs won’t wait on Dutton’s nuclear plans. Climate change impacts on Australia – fires, floods and other disasters – are making parts of Australia uninsurable. A 2022 Climate Council report found that 4% of homes across Australia would be uninsurable by 2030 and insurance costs rose by 28% between March 2022 and September 2024. Dutton’s campaign on the cost of living conveniently ignore these sorts of impacts on people’s pockets.

Writing in The Age (21/03) columnist Jenna Price looked at Dutton’s other problems. She cited a DemosAU poll of 3,000 Australians which found that one third of Coalition voters wanted a PM like Trump. It was similar for all male voters. That sounds encouraging for Trump-lite figures like Dutton, but the survey also showed that for women that position shrank to 15%.

The recently published Essential Poll revealed a 40% gap between how women aged 18-34 view Dutton and how men of the same age view him.

The latest Morgan poll – Morgan seems to have picked up the shift in the political landscape quicker than others – shows that support for the ALP among women has grown to 56.5% on a two-party preferred basis and with men the pro-Labor gap is 52.5%.