Peter Dutton has kept voters on their toes throughout the election campaign, zigzagging through policy reversals that have earned him the nickname “Mr. Flip-Flop” on X – and it’s not hard to see why. Since late March he’s been vaulting across the policy landscape, backflipping with a frequency that’s as dizzying as it is contentious.
His first notable backflip was on the work-from-home policy for public servants. Initially, in early March, he and the Coalition proposed ending flexible work arrangements, requiring public servants to return to the office full-time, a stance they labeled as “common sense.” However, by April 7, after significant backlash – particularly from women voters who rely on flexible arrangements – and poor polling, Dutton admitted the policy was a “mistake” and reversed it, apologising and confirming the Coalition would support flexible work practices.
Alongside this, the Coalition initially pledged to cut 41,000 public service jobs to save $24 billion over four years, a key part of their budget reply on March 27. By April 6, Dutton “walked back” this plan, clarifying the cuts would occur over five years through natural attrition and hiring freezes, not forced redundancies, raising questions about the feasibility of the promised savings and how they would fund other election commitments such as matching Labor’s $8.5 billion Medicare policy.
Another reversal came on the electric vehicle (EV) tax break. On April 21, Dutton explicitly stated the Coalition would not remove Labor’s fringe benefits tax exemption for EVs priced under $91,000 bought through novated leases, focusing instead on opposing Labor’s hybrid vehicle tax. Yet, on April 23, the Coalition announced it would scrap this EV tax concession to save $3 billion over the forward estimates and $23 billion over the medium term, a move to fund increased defense spending. On April 24, Dutton denied this was a backflip, insisting there was “no change in policy,” despite the clear contradiction.
Dutton also shifted on immigration policy. In his May 2024 budget reply, he promised to slash net migration from 185,000 to 140,000 for the first two years, then increase it to 150,000 and 160,000 in subsequent years, alongside cutting the refugee program from 20,000 to 13,750. By December 2024, he refused to recommit to these targets, leaving the Coalition’s migration stance unclear during the campaign.
Additionally, Dutton’s early campaign included a proposal for a referendum to empower politicians to deport dual nationals who commit serious crimes, despite his previous stance against referendums during the Voice debate. By mid-March, this idea was quietly hosed down by his team amid internal confusion and lack of detail, effectively stepping back from the proposal.
There were also mixed messages on breaking up insurance companies. The Coalition initially suggested forcing divestitures in the sector, but contradictory statements from shadow frontbenchers led to a lack of clarity, with the policy appearing to be de-emphasised by late March.
In total, Dutton has executed at least five clear policy backflips during the campaign: work-from-home arrangements, public service cuts, the EV tax break, immigration targets, and the deportation referendum. The insurance divestiture policy’s ambiguity could be considered a sixth, though it’s less definitive.
His flip-flops have sparked views of inconsistency, with social media critics challenging his trustworthiness (among the kinder takes). Still, this trend points to a campaign grappling to deliver a unified message as polls drop and voter pushback grows.
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Michael,
Jeez, all of us could have made a fortune by cornering the market on rubber spines.
Is it true that P Duddy is trying to hire people to shoot their feet off now that he’s almost down to stumps after multiple self inflicted wounds?
Their feet are now held together with flippers, GL.
No pun intended (Mr Flip-Flop, flippers). 🤦🏻♂️
Dutton’s growing notoriety as being “Mr Flip Flop” is just another euphemism to sugarcoat the reality that Dutton is an unconscionable, unrepentant pathological liar who will say and do ANYTHING to wrest autocratic power in order to rule over our nation like some third world dictator!
Dutton ticks every box as an extremely unpopular, callously inhumane and hatefully racist political psychopath who is very deserving of his nickname – as the negative “Mr No” – due to his relentless ongoing negativity and opposition to EVERYTHING that provides any benefit whatsoever to the poorest, most vulnerable citizens in our country!
There can be no doubt that if the worst possible scenario occurs and “Mr No” is elevated into the powerful position as the LNP’s NEXT “worst” Crime Minister of our nation, that he (and his unconscionable colleagues in the LNP) will destroy and rescind EVERYTHING they can get their capitalistic, neoliberal hands upon! That includes – but is not limited to – the total privatisation and sell-off of every vital State-owned public service throughout Australia. These services include Medicare, public hospitals, community health services, public schools, TAFE (much of which has ALREADY been privatised), our beloved taxpayer-funded ABC and SBS and many other various and diverse social services. The government also manages many aspects of infrastructure, environment, law enforcement as well as essential Federal- and/or State-owned public public transport – all of which the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance are desperate to privatise and sell-off to corporate predators – even if they are foreign-owned!
Currently, such essential services are controlled and managed by Australian taxpayers – via our Federal or State governments – providing high quality, low cost or fully-subsidised taxpayer-funded public services to ALL Australians. If the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance have their way, they will sell-off and privatise these services and put them in the hands of avaricious, foreign-owned corporate predators who’s ONLY focus is making an enormous profit at OUR expense. The way they will achieve this is to sack Australian staff, increase costs and charges whilst reducing the quality, quantity and regularity of service and possibly relocate the management of such services overseas where they are “out of reach” of strict Australian conditions relating to basic wage requirements and essential OH&S regulations that protect the workplace safety of workers employed in such services!
MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT – the LNP don’t give a toss about ordinary working- and middle-class Australians – they NEVER DID! The unconscionable elitists in the LNP don’t care about ANYONE but themselves and their avaricious, billionaire supporters in the Top 1% (people like meanie Gina Rinehart or their self-serving Publicity/Promotions Manager, the American citizen Rupert Murdoch)!
Ordinary working- and middle-class Australians who foolishly vote AGAINST their OWN best interests by supporting and voting for the condescending, self-serving political psychopaths in the LNP can be compared to TURKEYS VOTING FOR CHRISTMAS!
To all those working- and middle-class Australians out there who continue to support the diabolical, thoroughly entitled and avaricious sociopaths who park their pretentious backsides on EVERY seat in the LNP, ask yourself this question: “What has the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance EVER done – in its self-serving, elitist history – that has EVER provided ANY benefit, whatsoever, to working- and middle-class Australians?” The answer is “absolutely nothing!”
If you think of EVERY single service or benefit that provides ANY advantage to ordinary Australians, eg long service leave, 4 weeks’ annual leave, OH&S in the workplace, accumulative sick leave, maternity leave, Medicare – the list goes on and on – ALL of these services (and more) were initiated and enforced through the hard work, dedication, commitment and collaboration between Unions and the Labor Party! The FACT is that the LNP have NEVER EVER EVER initiated or passed any policy that provided any benefit to ordinary Australians and, in fact, fought long and hard AGAINST anything that our Unions and the ALP proposed that provided any advantage to the lives of Australian citizens!
Thanks Michael
Another policy that seems to have fallen off the coalition cart is the large retail divestiture policy.The Coalition’s plans to crack down on supermarket chains (read Woolworths and Coles) and hardware stores(read Bunnings) for price gouging, announced to much fanfare in July 2024.
Under the Coalition proposal, supermarket and hardware chains could face being broken up as or repeated price-gouging.
The policy was never explained and was roundly bagged by many including from within the Liberal party and has not seen the light of day since.
Then there was the very odd announcement of nuclear power stations to be built in:
Tarong in Queensland, north-west of Brisbane
Callide in Queensland, west of Gladstone
Liddell in NSW, in the Hunter Valley
Mount Piper in NSW, near Lithgow
Port Augusta in SA
Loy Yang in Victoria, in the Latrobe Valley
Muja in WA, near Collie
All has gone very quiet and reportedly Dutton has avoided visiting any of these locations and we still don’t have costings, timelines for acquisition, installation and commissioning or any other critical information on the output of these generators
It seems that many important areas of coalition policy – take Defence announced yesterday with no detail and almost as an afterthought- are not part of a coordinated plan towards building an election platform to attract the voters. It’s almost as though nobody is responsible for policy formulation and the result is a mad rush of announcements a week and a half before the election .
Go Kathryn, for a copy of your comments, tightly rolled, might serve as a suppository of wisdom to clear the passage of Dismal Dopey Dutton’s streams of lying rubbish. He is not fit for service in public life, being under-educated, simplistic, defective, stained…
Kathryn, I might steal that and turn it into a post. I’m sure the boss won’t mind. I fairly sure we’ve done that on more than one occasion.
Can I second Phil Pryor’s motion? Kathryn carries the distinction of being uniquely eloquent in her appraisals of the vanishingly small positive qualities along with the manifestly large negatives that are the sum of this country’s LNP political parties. I’m pretty sure that Phillip Adams would award her a koala stamp.
The position that Dutton aspires to, that of Prime Minister, is of course a singular one, and along with the responsibilities that adhere to it, it also implies some gravitas and respect for the incumbent in that role, and therein lies the rub; this man, Dutton, a liar, bully, sycophant to the rich, rabble-rouser, a sneering and cruel man wrt refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants of differently-coloured skins, indigenous Australians, a man who jokes about the distress of near-nation Pacific neighbours who are suffering with rising waters flooding their lands, a man so far out of his depth and so dumb he doesn’t even know he’s drowning, and yet… he still thinks he’s got what it takes. He doesn’t. And he certainly doesn’t deserve respect.
Looking forward to the night of the long knives come May 3rd and his demise.
Geez Michael, surly you can see that Boofhead Duddo s doing a Reverse Swansong Double Twist with Pike to (hopefully) finish off any pretence that the COALition are fit to be the democratically elected government of Australia.
PP sums it up with his usual concise clarity: ”Dismal Dopey Dutton ….. is not fit for service in public life”
My mate Blind Freddie observed that Boofhead is showing similar signs of natural disorganisation in 2025 to the Howard antics before the 2007 election when he fell from grace under the guidance of the Maxine McKew LABOR campaign. (Now there was a talent wasted).
For those interested in the antics of the NOtional$ least competent adulterous alcoholic misogynist in New England ….. Armidale NSW pre-poll booth was graced with the presence of the disHonourable Member for a WHOLE 30 MINUTES on Wednesday ….. before he inspected the seven (7) local hostelries to determine whether the beer was fit for consumption (in large quantities). No planter boxes were injured in this rush to the bar.
Thank you to Phil Pryor, Roswell and Canguro who, like me, have been long-term critics of the LNP (an acronym for the Lying Nasty Parasites) – truly the worst, most corrupt, callously inhumane and fascist regime in our history. Roswell, by all means you can re-use my anti-LNP monologues anytime you like! Let’s hope the insight we all share about the misogynistic predators, condescending elitists and cruel political psychopaths in the LNP encourages more and more Australians to vote against them to ensure that the LNP never ever get a chance to rise into autocratic power – like demons out of hell.
The LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance are desperate to obliterate, destroy and/or defund compassionate policies that benefit 99% of ALL Australians (with the notable exception of the LNP’s favoured wealthy, self-obsessed supporters in the thoroughly entitled Top 1%).
Labor, our Unions, the Greens and many left-wing Independents have all worked hard to provide a helping hand to the poorest, most vulnerable citizens in our nation and to protect and safeguard our precious, fragile environment which the environmental vandals in the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance will destroy with their reckless support of coal and their even more short-sighted, dangerous obsession with nuclear power. Clearly, the LNP have absolutely NO CLUE where to dump the thousands of tons of toxic nuclear waste (that nuclear power generates) which remains lethally RADIOACTIVE for thousands of years! Once again, the LNP have proven that they have NO vision, zero foresight and NO CLUE!
Kathryn, I’ve given it a good work over but it hasn’t lost any of its feel.
This site has a number of editing tools that I ran the post through: “inclusive language”, “readability analysis” and “SEO analysis”, all of which are tools to help articles be easily found in Google searches, so I make any recommended changes.
Am just tidying up a few things then I’ll publish it.
It’s up now, Kathryn.
There are words I’m forbidden to use, such as “psychopaths”, which is a pity.
Seeing as how the LNP, and assorted main sleaze meedja, have nothing of any relevance or value to contribute to the last week of electioneering I see Der Spud going for a deep dive into the Cesspit of Ultimate Nastiness in pure desperation as he chases The Most Fabulous Object in the World (with thanks to Terry Gilliam), the big chair in Canberra.