Tabled document reveals Liberal party’s secret election review of its ‘worst campaign’: from ‘grim’ Dutton to ‘weird’ nuclear policy
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/03/tabled-document-reveals-liberal-partys-secret-election-review-of-its-worst-campaign-from-grim-dutton-to-weird-nuclear-policy
29 Comments
I wonder who in the Liberal party leaked this? I can’t see the Nationals (assuming they had it) leaking it, there’s no upside for them in a review pinpointing the obsession with Nuclear power as a downfall.
We need to follow the Ley lines.
The fact that Labor got to smugly release this review for them surely needs to be included as a mistake in the *next* review, right?
The “The ‘weird’ nuclear fantasy” was on of the reasons.
But aren’t the Nationals still running with a nuclear policy????
I presume the Nationals would have seen the report and yet still going with one of the policies that was the undoing of the coalition vote.
I think the reason this was buried isn’t because of Dutton’s defamation threat but more so the Liberal party persisting with much of the stuff the report identified as being why they lost.
Being open to Nuclear Energy is a massive vote loser in Australia. One image of Blinky The Three Eyed Fish from Simpsons, the whole debate is done.
It lacked focused messaging. I had no idea what the plans for Australia were apart from some futuristic nuclear plants.
So much gold in this article.
>The review revealed that head office had conducted research on the politics of nuclear power dating back to Scott Morrison’s prime ministership, which confirmed a long public awareness campaign was necessary to shift the views of sceptical voters – specifically female voters.
>The research was shared with Dutton’s office but wasn’t properly acted upon, allowing Labor to successfully prosecute arguments about the potential cost of the reactors.
>A post-election survey conducted by CT Group, referenced in the review, found nuclear was “deeply unpopular” among female voters, who “considered it weird”.
Uh, yeah, that’s cos it *is* weird.
>Recommendation 14 of the review contains a statement of the obvious to followers of Australian politics: “the female vote is clearly a problem for the Liberal Party.”
>But the report makes a striking observation about the party’s failure to attempt to understand why.
>“After at least a decade of a declining female vote it remains a mystery that the party has not performed a deep-dive into its causes,” it found.
>The review highlights the absence of senior female staff in the party’s head office and a lack of engagement with organisations such as Hilma’s Network – a grassroots group designed to bring “Liberal-minded women” together – and the non-partisan Women for Election Australia.
>“Both those organisations have successfully identified and trained election candidates, and their alumni lists are impressive,” the review said.
>“They could claim some expert knowledge of the female vote and what moves it. Yet both described a lack of interest in their work from MPs and some Women’s Councils, even distrust and hostility, including from the former leader’s office.”
Pretty clear to me that they actually don’t care about female voters at all. I hope female voters continue to desert them in droves.
Good to know the Libs are learning the hard lessons from this report and… oh wait, they got rid of their female leader in place of another trump guy?… well okay.
It boggles the mind that Jane Hume, who gleefully promoted the disastrous policy of ceasing work from home arrangements, has just been elected Deputy Leader. Also, Angus Taylor.
ok, so even they knew the nuclear policy was a shit one. They were just deliberately causing discourse in the community.
Pretty interesting read. I don’t think there’s any surprises in there and if anything it’s probably a bit too rosy for the Liberal leadership since there’s a clear path to fix all of these (don’t let your leader look like he secretly hangs out in an abandoned castle and eats human flesh; work with your campaign manager; sack useless pollsters) except the one about failing to win the female vote. They can’t fix that one any time soon since dismissing female opinions is a feature not a bug in the leadership.
it’s ok, I hear Dutton got a job as consultant potato for Tony Galati
Dutton was remarkably poor at campaigning, but their terrible election performance and dismal current polling is a result of their policies.
They need a total and complete reappraisal of their core policy platform, disavowing their current economic policy that is all supply-side based and wholly discredited since the GFC. They also need to move sharply to the centre on social policy and abandon all culture wars. They won’t do any of that and won’t win another election unless there is some extreme crisis.
Dutton is incredibly offputting on a personal level. Albo shits me to tears sometimes but I voted Labor anyway. This is Australia and I’m voting for my local member and the senate, not Albo personally. I also don’t feel a deep sense of shame seeing him on the international stage whereas Dutton would have been an absolute embarrassment. Finally, and most importantly, I’m pretty sure Albo can see his reflection in the mirror. And he probably doesn’t feast on the neighbourhood pets during the full moon. Can’t say that about Dutton.
“The voice to parliament failed so therefore we will win the next election”
Very few people cared about the voice to parliament, that’s why it failed.
I hope someone at Liberal Party HQ saved a copy of the text of this report, so they don’t have to type all of it out again after the next election.
I really want to read the report itself, but from what I’ve seen, 90% of the message to the Liberals here is – it was Dutton’s fault. So in terms of next steps it’s going to be:
1) Ditch Dutton (tick)
2) Change nothing else
3) Win
As fascinating as the report is, it really doesn’t address the issue, which is the electorate is just too far removed from core Liberal party values in many suburban seats.
In their ranks they harbour climate denialist, religious fundamentalists, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQI (especially anti-trans), anti-immigration, anti-women and coal obsessed politicians.
Maybe they could be against the grain on one or two of these, but that is a very large segment of the Aus population they are essentially giving the finger to.
The moderates fell apart when Turnbull was knifed and responded hopelessly and now the conservatives have hung themselves through their own hubris. No change in backroom management and election planning will fix being so at odds with the public.
Leaving aside all the stuff about Dutton and the campaign team, having quickly read through it, this is a really badly-constructed review, and it completely ignores/overlooks many of the biggest factors in the Liberals loss, which is their batshit policies and complete absence of credibility on issues that people do actually care about.
For example: there is literally no mention of climate policy in this review, except for a sentence where it refers to the ALP’s “climate change lies”.
Even these reviewers have drunk the fucking kool-aid. There are thousands upon thousnds of words spilled here about the need to unseat the Teals, the need to figure out how to appeal to women and young people and cities –
Have these fuckers even considered at all the fact that climate change and the future liveability of the planet is actually a concern for young people and women and people who live in cities? That, more than anything, has empowered the Teals to find the success that they have.
But, no, apparently not. This report complains about “climate change lies” whilst at the same time including paragraphs on the negative impact of long weekends on the Coalition’s campaign.
These people are completely lost, out at sea, and they don’t even vaguely know where their boat was anymore.
Also this is minor but at one point it refers to the “hole in the bucket” campaign ads from 2022 as being highly successful… fucking lol
I think it ***catastrophically fails*** to mention Dutton’s excessive hubris and arrogance throughout the campaign and complete lack of *meaningful policies* from the LNP to convince voters that they were a reasonable choice. Also, it fails to touch on that Dutton really lacks intelligence and comes across as the ‘typical’ school yard bully throughout his whole time *as a significantly underperforming politician* who had a blatantly ‘very nasty streak’ about him. Absolutely nothing endearing about the man whatsoever.
From the article:
>Here are six of the main takeaways.
**1.** A ‘grim and introverted leader’
Australian elections are increasingly presidential in nature, the review observed, making the leader the most “critical component” of the campaign.
In Dutton, that critical component was found to be fatally flawed. “The electorate expects to see and hear an upbeat and inspiring leader,” the review said.
“All of that was lacking and the leader’s grim and introverted demeanour, clothed in the ubiquitous suit whatever the occasion, did not change during the campaign and perhaps reflected the heavy and additional burden he imposed on himself.”…fashioned a “hard-man” image…**“unattractive to women”** – so much so that some female candidates asked for him not to visit their electorates. He was also viewed as “lacking connection” with younger voters.
**2.** A ‘broken’ relationship The review laid bare a “broken” and “unworkable” relationship between Dutton, his office and the party’s federal director, Andrew Hirst, a campaign veteran who masterminded Scott Morrison’s “miracle” win in 2019. Dutton had “little confidence” in Hirst…
**3.** The Trump factor Dutton, unkindly referred to by one candidate as ‘Temu Trump’ was successfully painted as “Trump-like” by Labor…
**4.** The ‘weird’ nuclear fantasy…a long public awareness campaign was necessary to shift the views of sceptical voters – specifically female voters…(refer to 1)…nuclear was “deeply unpopular” among female voters, who “considered it weird”.
**5.** ‘Faulty polling’…the party was “disastrously misled” by “faulty” research from polling firm Freshwater Strategy, which significantly overstated support for the Coalition.
**6.** The female vote…“the female vote is clearly a problem for the Liberal Party.” But the report makes **a striking observation about the party’s failure to attempt to understand why.**
His wife can make the *baseless, subjective claim* that [‘He is not a monster’](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-31/peter-dutton-labor-meme-pm-orders-takedown/104773522) but the masses were not buying into that BS. If they never learn from history then they are prone to repeat the same old mistakes and really drive away the female vote.
I wasn’t a fan of Dutton, but saying he wasn’t a confident or inspiring speaker is a bit of a cheap shot… as Gillard, Abbott, Morrison, Ley and even Albanese (at times) have struggled with that as well. It’s actually one of Hanson’s strengths.
But there are ways the political parties can improve that by themselves with vocal coaching and elocution lessons to get that deep, authoritative news reader sound of the past.
The only real thing left to conserve for the majority of voters right now is hope for the future, which the Liberals are showing they aren’t really as invested in as Labor are.
Don’t forget “weird” Dutton and “grim” nuclear policy
Never forget that the Liberal Party only selects people based on ability, not affirmative action or anything woke like that. So, if Dutton was the best on offer, what does that say about the rest of them?
Australians collectively rejected a very Trumpian campaign driven by strong personal preference and narcissism of the party leader instead of professional competence and reason, and we embraced old-school decency and professionalism even when it meant less exciting if not boring sometimes. In turbulent times like this, having a stable and earnest leader/government is a true blessing. Well done.
Ok I think this is my favourite quote from the report
> The Party’s capacity to thoughtlessly offend groups, including the Chinese, was, as others have observed, a widespread problem.
When you don’t have any real purpose, culture war rubbish is all you have to talk about.
The Liberal Party had only had culture war stuff for so long that their voters have grown immune to everything but the harder stuff (Hanson).
What else can they rely on but:
a) the competence and personality of their leadership (ha!)
b) Albo screwing up on a Rudd-Gillard scale (and say what you like about the Labor party, but they learned their lesson from that).
“Several female candidates told us that Peter Dutton was disliked by women and asked for him not to visit their electorates”
My god.
“Further research to understand the loss of the female vote over the last decade must be undertaken urgently”
Here’s a tip, stop moving further right and becoming overtaken by religious groups who want to remove our rights and bodily autonomy.
Maintain the separation of church and state.
Edit: There’s also nothing I could see in the review about the role of religion and its high profile, strong links to the Liberal Party. These links are a concern to myself and I’m sure many other women in Australia and they dont touch on it at all.
Does it mention that Dutton is a sook?
I hope there’s at least a page and a half where they analyse their policies in depth.