After nine shambolic years of the Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison governments (2013 to 2022) it’s hard to see a Dutton government doing anything but emulate the policy failures of their three predecessors across economic, social, environmental, and governance domains. Peter Dutton, you will recall, was a senior minister and contributor in each of those governments. He was part of the debacles. He carries their baggage into the election campaign.
Let’s examine their big ticket failures.
Economic Policy Failures
Abbott Government (2013–2015)
2014 Budget: The Abbott government’s first budget was condemned for its austerity measures, including cuts to health, education, and welfare. Proposals like the $7 GP co-payment and university fee deregulation were regressive, disproportionately affecting lower-income Australians (forever the Coalition’s preferred target), and were largely blocked by the Senate, highlighting poor stakeholder engagement and policy design. In a nutshell, it was a woeful budget.
Failure to Address Economic Transition: The Abbott government failed to address the economic transition from the post-mining boom, with insufficient investment in emerging industries, leading to sluggish economic growth and high unemployment.
Turnbull Government (2015–2018)
Tax Reform: The Turnbull government struggled to implement comprehensive tax reform. While it considered increasing the GST to fund income tax cuts, this was abandoned due to public and political opposition, reflecting a lack of Turnbull’s decisive leadership. The eventual corporate tax cuts were only partially implemented, benefiting large businesses (of course) but failing to stimulate broader economic growth.
Economic Messaging and Confidence: Despite promises of strong economic leadership, the Turnbull government failed to boost consumer and business confidence, with economic growth remaining sluggish and real wages declining. The excuse was this was partly due to global economic conditions, but the most likely reason was policy inertia.
Morrison Government (2018–2022)
Debt and Deficit Management: The Morrison government oversaw a significant increase in national debt, reaching nearly $1 trillion. Admittedly it was during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it could also be attributed to pre-pandemic spending on programs like JobKeeper, which, while effective in averting immediate economic collapse, was criticised for inefficiencies, such as payments to ineligible businesses. Typically, it was poor fiscal discipline.
Wage Growth and Cost of Living: The Morrison era saw stagnant wage growth and rising inflation – particularly post-COVID – which eroded living standards. Policies to address cost-of-living pressures such as temporary fuel excise cuts were short-term fixes rather than real reforms.
Social Policy Failures
Abbott Government
Healthcare Cuts: Significant cuts to hospital funding agreements with states – reducing promised funding increases annually – pushed states into a “fiscal cliff,” threatening public healthcare sustainability.
Welfare and Social Services: The Abbott government’s “No Jab, No Pay” policy, withholding childcare payments from unvaccinated children’s parents, was effective in increasing vaccination rates but its punitive approach potentially exacerbated disadvantage among vulnerable families.
Turnbull Government
Same-Sex Marriage Plebiscite: The decision to hold a non-binding plebiscite on same-sex marriage, rather than a parliamentary vote, was a failure of leadership, delaying marriage equality and exposing the community to divisive public debate. While marriage equality was eventually legislated, the process was unnecessarily costly and harmful.
Housing Affordability: The Turnbull government failed to address housing affordability, with policies like negative gearing reforms being abandoned due to internal party resistance, perpetuating inequality and homeownership challenges for the younger generation of Australians.
Morrison Government
Robodebt: The Morrison government’s continuation and expansion of the automated debt recovery scheme (Robodebt) was a massive failure, illegally issuing tens of thousands of incorrect welfare debt notices, causing significant distress, and ultimately requiring a $1.8 billion settlement. This reflected a failure in governance and oversight, prioritizing cost recovery over fairness. More than 2,000 Australians took their life because of Robodebt. In my years as a keen observer of politics this episode is the darkest yet. None of the masterminds of Robodebt were ever held to account. Tragic. The creators of this policy were slapped with a lettuce leaf.
Response to Social Issues: Thw Morrison government was slow to address gender equality and domestic violence, with funding for women’s shelters and services remaining inadequate despite high-profile scandals, such as those in Parliament House, highlighting cultural and policy failures.
Environmental Policy Failures
Abbott Government
Repeal of Carbon Pricing: The Abbott government’s repeal of the Labor government’s carbon pricing scheme was a significant policy failure, dismantling an effective emissions reduction mechanism without a comparable replacement. The substitute Direct Action policy was totally inadequate, failing to meet emissions reduction targets and favouring industry over systemic change.
Climate Policy Inaction: The government’s rejection of climate science and prioritization of fossil fuel interests, including support for coal, was seen as a failure to address Australia’s climate obligations, damaging its international reputation.
Turnbull Government
National Energy Guarantee (NEG): The Turnbull government’s attempt to implement the NEG, which aimed to balance emissions reduction with energy reliability, was abandoned due to internal party resistance, particularly from conservative factions. This failure perpetuated policy uncertainty in the energy sector, contributing to high electricity prices and delayed emissions reductions.
Climate Policy Constraints: Despite Turnbull’s personal support for stronger climate action, his government was constrained by conservative elements, leading to minimal progress on emissions targets and renewable energy investment.
Morrison Government
Climate Inaction and Fossil Fuel Support: The Morrison government was criticised for its continued support of fossil fuels, including new gas projects and weak emissions reduction targets, which were deemed insufficient by international standards. The government’s reliance on “technology not taxes” was seen as a failure to implement systemic policy changes needed for net-zero commitments.
Bushfire Response: The Morrison government’s response to the 2019–2020 bushfires was less than inadequate; it was embarrassing, with delays in disaster relief funding and a perceived lack of leadership on climate change. The establishment of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency was a reactive measure, not a proactive policy to address underlying climate risks. But in Morrison’s defence, he didn’t “hold a hose, mate”. Besides, he was on holidays in Hawaii. Priorities, mate.
Governance and Integrity Failures
Abbott Government
Leadership Instability: The Abbott government faced internal instability, with leadership challenges and cabinet leaks undermining governance. Policies like the knighthood for Prince Philip proved how out-of-touch Abbott was. No wonder public trust was eroded.
Asylum Seeker Policy: The “stop the boats” policy, while achieving its cruel stated goal, was criticised for its human rights implications, including offshore detention conditions and secrecy, reflecting a governance failure in balancing security with humanitarian obligations.
Turnbull Government
Internal Party Conflict: The Turnbull government was plagued by ideological conflicts between moderate and conservative factions, leading to policy paralysis and Turnbull’s eventual ousting. This internal dysfunction was a governance failure, prioritizing party politics over national interest. Turnbull was seen as being too gutless to stand up to the powerful hard-right factions in the party. He was a major disappointment.
The NBN: The National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout continued from the Abbott era, was haunted with cost overruns, delays, and inferior technology choices (e.g., copper over fibre), reflecting poor planning and execution. Turnbull and Abbott should never be forgiven for sending us back to the 1990s.
Morrison Government
Corruption and Accountability: The Morrison government faced allegations of corruption, including sports rorts (misallocation of sports grants to marginal electorates) and pork-barrelling, undermining public trust. The failure to establish a robust federal anti-corruption commission (ICAC) was a significant policy gap, especially given promises to do so.
AUKUS and Foreign Policy: The Morrison government’s decision to cancel a $90 billion French submarine contract in favour of the AUKUS pact damaged diplomatic relations with France and lacking transparency, reflecting a failure in strategic governance and international trust.
Final word
Peter Dutton, as mentioned in the introduction, was a senior minister in each of these failed governments. Failure is in his political blood, and he will be carrying the baggage of these failed governments when he enters the race for victory in the 2025 federal election.
I don’t know about you, but I think he’s carrying too much of that baggage.
Also by Michael Taylor: With Elon Musk running the show, what could possibly go wrong?
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Dutton crawled away from an ordinary police career and hid in the bushes of evacuation. Since then he has had enormous family luck in prosperity while failing every single thing attempted. He is a chronic failure, a dud, dill, drongo, dreg, doomed and dumboed. But, behind him are the hidden slimes and slippery slugs of donorisms, sponsoring, cunning profiteering hopefuls, bent careerists sans ethics, indecent manipulators, cynical abusers of law (Pezzullo?? UGHH.) Conservative cesspittery is Duttonry, and it lurks, while the fat frau of the west smiles and pays out. So vote for static ruination and spreading misery, with Dutton! Hooray!!
No need to analyse their past failures: the simple test is “Would you trust Dutton and his mob to look after your dog for a week?”
Thank you for your great run-down Michael, a wonderfully clear analysis to pass on to friends and family dismayed by similar characters wreaking havoc upon US democracy (such as it was).
Given the prominence of imagery in our lives (as exemplified by the fact that almost 50% of our brain is involved in visual processing), and as discussed almost sixty years ago by the French theorist Guy Debord in his seminal work, The Society of the Spectacle, it’s hard to rid oneself of that picture of Abbott’s treasurer Hockey and Finance Minister Cormann sucking down on a pair of expensive Havanan stogies in a faintly repellant quasi-homoerotic substitute for a group wank cum circle jerk celebratory act after the disastrous austerity budget had been handed down.
One wonders at the manifestations of paradox when pondering where in what universe truth and justice manifest, given these two stooges went on to become, respectively, the Australian ambassador to the USA and the Secretary-General of the OECD.
Interesting in recent days with Trump’s outrageous comments against allies have had Dutton and Abbott running cover and trying to deflect with elections approaching.