A month ago, Peter Dutton declared he would “restore a curriculum … that cultivates critical thinking, responsible citizenship, and common sense,” warning of insidious “indoctrination” in our schools. Two days before the election, he’s pivoted to “we have no proposals” (which is a more accurate statement than he realises), leaving Coalition colleagues scrambling to justify what “common sense” actually entails and how common it is in the Liberal Party Room.
In early April, Dutton accused teachers of “indoctrinating” children with a “woke agenda,” hinting to this Karen (who definitely has school-age children that she needs to worry about) that federal funding for schools might hinge on rooting out ideological content. Remind me, what temperature do books burn at again? 451 degrees Fahrenheit, right?
He painted a picture of radical teachers “indoctrinating” kids into “political activists,” then promised a swift rewrite of the National Curriculum to banish bias, despite being unable to point out what (if any) parts of said curriculum were too woke, or even what ‘woke’ means. Students and union groups promptly freaked the fuck out, warning that even vague threats to slash education spending on this basis risked undermining classroom autonomy and free speech… which, yeah, of course it does. That’s the point. This is the same LNP that said free speech was so important that people “have the right to be bigots,” yeah?
On 1 May, with some voters already at the polls, Dutton told reporters flatly that he, in fact, had “no proposals” to change the curriculum after all. Cue shadow ministers insisting the Coalition remained committed to “getting back to basics,” whilst being coy as to what “basics” actually are. What this, and many other Dutton backflips during this campaign, tells Australian voters is more or less what they already intuitively know: the spud is not ready for prime time.
Donald Trump many times vowed to restore “common sense” during his election campaign by gutting “CRT” from schools, leaving many families wondering what, exactly, ‘critical race theory’ had to do with AP Physics (Hint: Nothing!). Florida’s Ron DeSantis went further, banning an Advanced Placement African American Studies course for alleged “indoctrination,” only for the academic board to point out the disputed topics were historically vetted. Book bans and lesson-plan overhauls followed nationwide, framed as common-sense fixes to “activist” curricula. Because if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Americans have too much darn book-learnin’.
This approach helped sweep Donald Trump back into the presidency, but these tactics simply don’t fly with the Australian electorate, partially due to that still-semi-functional educational system I mentioned earlier. If anything, Dutton’s allusions to wanting to emulate Trump’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, cut 41,000 public service sector workers and enforce ‘return to office’ mandates have made (enough) Australians realise that this is not the kind of reactionary politics that we want to import from the US – resulting in a 5 point swing against the LNP over eight weeks. It also doesn’t help that Jacinta Price started yelling “Make Australia Great Again!” next to Dutton at a press conference. You can see the moment his little heart breaks – aw! A comment that Price (and I shit you not) ‘does not realise’ that she said. Babe, we have it on tape? Why deny it?
What this looks like (and frankly, what it is) is a leader who is morally and ideologically bankrupt; a man who is willing to say and do whatever reactionary nonsense he thinks will get him into power. It worked great when he was just in opposition, punching down on Anthony Albanese is easy (and fun!), but when it came time to articulate a comprehensive, costed, positive policy vision for Australia’s future, he’s been found completely wanting.
It’s not a surprise, anyone who knows anything about Dutton’s life in politics has seen it coming, with one of his colleagues, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, describing him as a “thug” who was unfit for the office. With friends like these, who needs enemies!
Hopefully, enough Australians realise this that on May 3rd, they will choose at the ballot box to permanently return the potato to managing his $300 mil property portfolio – clearly his true calling in life.