This was published 3 months ago
Opinion
Peter Dutton, friend of the working class. For now…
Waleed Aly
Columnist, co-host of Ten's The Project and academicThe great political realignment of the 21st century is well under way in Australia. Explicitly so, if you take Peter Dutton at his word this week.
You’re probably familiar with how this is meant to work: traditionally establishment-focused conservative parties align themselves with the suburban and rural working class, while once worker-focused progressive parties appeal more to wealthier, more educated urban elites. This pattern, disclosed most dramatically in the Brexit and Trump triumphs of 2016, has repeated frequently since, whether in British and US midterm elections, or in the last two federal ones here.
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
In 2022, the teal wave grabbed the headlines. Less noted was the swing against Labor’s primary vote in a parade of suburban seats, disguised by the fact Labor often still won them. Since then, and since Dutton’s ascension to opposition leader, much has been made of the Coalition’s strategy of chasing those shaky suburban seats, even at the expense of surrendering the now teal-coloured Liberal heartland.
Hence, Dutton’s declaration this week that the Liberal Party is now “the party of the worker”. Dutton was speaking at a small-business lobby gathering, so he was sure to say it was simultaneously “the party of small and family business”.
This works in the new political alignment because it’s not so much a battle of workers and (all) employers, as it is between the masses and the elites. Small-business owners aren’t elites, but Dutton will happily tell you who are: “inner-city elites, big business, union bosses, industry super funds, and woke advocates”. Big business might be surprised to find themselves in cahoots with union bosses like this, but there you are.
We could parse these categories all day. For example, the inner city is awash with small businesses, many of them quite successful: are these small-business people, or elites? Or are the inner-city elites actually the workers – some of whom don’t earn all that much – but who happen to have contracted some woke mind-virus at university or on X? Is the Liberal Party the party of those workers? This exercise would be fun, and it might reveal a certain incoherence in Dutton’s taxonomy, but that’s not actually the incoherence that matters. In fact, in an odd way, it might reinforce Dutton’s basic argument.
That’s because in this new political alignment, elites aren’t really economic elites. They’re cultural elites. A recent university graduate earning not terribly much is elite in that sense, while a tradie earning significantly more is less likely to be. The real dividing line I think Dutton is scratching at is between those who are part of the knowledge economy and those who aren’t. That doesn’t correlate precisely with income just now, but it does correlate with some degree of social mobility and plenty of political attitudes. This is why, for example, the clearest predictor of how people voted on the Voice referendum wasn’t income, but education level.
Dutton’s divisions have purchase, but only as long as politics stays primarily at the level of identity. As soon as politics starts operating at the level of material or economic reality, Dutton’s move becomes decidedly trickier. And nothing shows this up quite so well as Dutton’s plea to business from that very same speech to speak out against Labor’s economic policies. Here, he accuses CEOs of being “silent” and “supine” fearing “a social media backlash”. Morrison launched a similar attack on big business in 2019 for being too preoccupied with moral issues and not contributing robustly enough to the economic debate. But there’s a big difference now. We’re in a cost-of-living crisis, in which Labor is repeatedly asking Fair Work to increase the minimum wage significantly, has redesigned the Coalition’s stage-three tax cuts in favour of middle-income earners, and is trying to push through a suite of industrial relations reforms that business doesn’t terribly like.
In other words, politics is in a primarily material, economic phase. That’s perhaps another reason the Voice referendum failed, and it is surely why Dutton is so often keen to mention it. It allows him to argue the Albanese government (along with big business which campaigned for Yes) is off on identity-based frolics when it should be looking after real people with real concerns. The problem is that Dutton’s engagement with big businesses has tended to take the form of identity-based frolics of his own. He’s calling for people to boycott Woolworths when it decides not to stock Australia Day merchandise, but not when it is accused of wage theft, for instance. Dutton’s backbenchers might be goading him break up the supermarket duopoly, but there’s little sign he’s terribly interested in that sort of thing.
Dutton’s frequent invocation of the Voice, and his attempt to pit the worker against some kind of woke-union-industrial complex might isn’t an economic argument. It functions to keep politics in the realm of identity. It conscripts economics into a culture war. But what happens if business takes Dutton’s advice? What if it starts agitating for Dutton’s preferred kind of industrial relations reforms or, say, demanding tax cuts at the top end?
At that point, there’s a real chance politics’ identity cover will be blown, and suburban workers will be treated to the spectacle of the Coalition and business advocating in unison against some rights workers might quite like. They’ll probably start warning of the dangers of wages growing too fast, or conditions being too generous. If that transpires, if conditions of economic stress endure, and if Labor can maintain the focus on such policy arguments, there’s a chance Dutton’s workers will have grander concerns than woke virtue signalling.
That’s the incoherence that matters: a party for the worker with no obviously pro-worker policies. That might remain obscured as long as the Coalition can refuse to detail any policy, and trade only on the resentment of tough economic times. That, to be fair, is a grand tradition in opposition politics and might work awhile. But in the long run, the Coalition will likely be forced to argue that business-friendly policies are ultimately worker-friendly ones because they are best for the economy as a whole.
That’s a fine argument to make. It’s just that it sounds a lot like the one the Liberals used to make when Labor was the party of the worker, before the suburban strategy, before the great realignment. And having drawn new lines, it becomes awkward for the Coalition to have to step over them.
Waleed Aly is a broadcaster, author, academic and regular columnist. He is a lecturer in politics at Monash University and co-host of Channel Ten’s The Project.
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