Australian Liberal Leader Peter Dutton concedes defeat in the country's election on May 3 in Brisbane. The conservative politician drew comparisons to Donald Trump that were tough to shake during the campaign that saw the incumbent Labor party re-elected on Saturday.Dan Peled/Getty Images
When it became clear that Australia’s Liberals were headed for a historic defeat in Saturday’s election, Senator James Paterson was clear about who he blamed for his party’s loss: “the Donald Trump factor.”
The conservative Liberal-National Coalition – which governed Australia from 2013 to 2022 – lost seats across the country amid a national swing toward Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ruling Labor Party, including that of Liberal Leader Peter Dutton.
At the beginning of the year, polls had shown the Coalition on course for victory, just like the Conservatives in Canada. But electoral trajectories subsequently reversed in both countries, Mr. Paterson noted, during Mr. Trump’s first months back in the White House.
The Coalition spokesperson’s argument: The conservative leaders in Australia and Canada failed to win because their politics resembled the U.S. President.
“It was devastating in Canada for the Conservatives, where the Canadian Conservative Leader lost 20 points over the course of a few months. I think that has been a factor here,” Mr. Paterson said, speaking to the ABC as results rolled in.
Australia’s Anthony Albanese claimed a historic second term as prime minister on May 3 in a dramatic comeback against once-resurgent conservatives that was powered by voters' concerns about the influence of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Reuters
Mr. Dutton, a former police officer who served as minister and attack dog for several former conservative leaders, once embraced comparisons to Mr. Trump, even proposing an Australian equivalent to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
This approach was embraced and cheered on by Australia’s powerful right-wing media, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., but quickly backfired after Mr. Albanese called an election at the height of Mr. Trump‘s trade-war chaos. Polls showed voters were turned off by any suggestion of bringing MAGA-style politics to their shores.
Try as he might, Mr. Dutton could not shrug the comparisons, with even a focus group of his own supporters describing him as “too Trumpy.” In his humiliating double concession speech Saturday, where he acknowledged losing both the country and his own seat, Mr. Dutton said his party had been “defined by our opponents in this election.”
An April poll by the Sydney Morning Herald found 60 per cent of Australian voters believed Mr. Trump‘s election was bad for their country, while one-third said they were less likely to vote for Mr. Dutton because of his association with the U.S. President.
Beyond the Coalition’s worst result since 1946, smaller right-wing parties also failed to break through, with conservative billionaire Clive Palmer‘s Trumpet of Patriots – which spent millions on advertising, including blanketing increasingly annoyed voters with daily text messages – only picking up 1.85 per cent of the national vote.
Unlike Canada’s Conservative Leader, Pierre Poilievre – who Mr. Trump may have cost victory in last month’s election but nevertheless added seats and appears poised to continue leading the party – Mr. Dutton’s political career appears to be over. Because he is no longer an MP, he can no longer lead Australia’s Liberal Party.
Even as the party quickly dissolved into infighting Sunday over its future direction, one thing everyone appeared to agree upon was the woeful nature of Mr. Dutton’s gaffe-filled and often contradictory campaign.
A path forward for the party will be difficult: Saturday’s defeat claimed many of its leading figures and potential future stars, on both the moderate and right wings of the party. Surviving lawmakers were split on whether they needed to pivot back toward the centre and stop the bleeding toward so-called “teal independents,” or tack harder to the right.
“Grievance politics was not enough to win,” former Liberal lawmaker and party strategist Arthur Sinodinos wrote Sunday. “An opposition must have a clear and coherent plan that demonstrates they are ready to govern.”
Liberal Senator James McGrath warned against adopting “Donald Trump‘s positions,” saying this “would be dangerous for my party.”
“I speak as a Ronald Reagan Republican and a George Bush Republican,” he said, speaking on the ABC. “We are a free-trade party and pro-Ukraine and we should continue to be centre-right. We must resist that path, focus on where middle Australia is.”
Australia's Anthony Albanese speaks to won the election on May 3. The left-leaning Prime Minister called a vote during Donald Trump's trade war, turning voters off of the U.S. President's style of politics.SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images
Others in the party expressed the opposite view, with Senator Alex Antic telling Sky News that “what we have to do is make sure that we make the Liberal Party great again – I said it, there we go – so we can make Australia great again.”
He added: “We’ve seen it in the United States, the Republican Party is stronger under a stronger conservative leader, and I think the same is true here.”
But whoever emerges as the next Liberal leader will face an emboldened Labor movement. Mr. Albanese is already being hailed as among the pantheon of the party’s heroes, on par with Bob Hawke, who led Labor to four successive election wins, at a time when the Liberals were riven by infighting between the party’s moderate and conservative wings.
Mr. Albanese vowed on Saturday to govern for “all Australians” and further grow the party’s tent. In his sole dig at Mr. Dutton’s Trumpian Achilles’ heel, the Prime Minister said Australia “does not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else.”
He added: “We do not seek our inspiration overseas,” as “we find it here in our country and our people.”