Source : the age
In the wake of the federal election, one thing is abundantly clear: Peter Dutton misread the nation. While Australians grappled with a cost-of-living crisis, a fragile health system, and worsening housing insecurity, the former opposition leader chose to focus on the wrong things.
In the final weeks of the campaign, the opposition doubled down on stoking fear and division, reviving culture-war rhetoric, attacking diversity initiatives, and once again turning Aboriginal people into political targets. They aligned with fringe narratives pushed by groups like Advance Australia and Trumpet of Patriots, who sought to undermine and discredit cultural practices like Welcome to Country.
Former opposition leader Peter Dutton attempted to make Welcome to Country ceremonies an election issue.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Dutton appeared to assume that because the country rejected the Voice to parliament, there was a green light to keep attacking Aboriginal people – this time by going after Welcome to Country and other expressions of identity and sovereignty. It might have seemed like a politically advantageous tactic. It wasn’t. Australians saw through it.
“It’s dividing the country,” Dutton said of the ceremony, which I recently described in this masthead as “an inclusive protocol, as simple and profound as removing a hat in respect [or] standing silently for an anthem”.
It didn’t have to be this way. Australians want leadership with a bold economic vision, focused on uniting people. They want practical solutions: affordable groceries, accessible health care, a path out of the housing crisis. Instead, what they were offered was a campaign that leaned into division and recycled resentment from the 2023 referendum. It was no surprise to me that this approach failed to resonate.
Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said on election night that “if you sling enough mud during the election, it will stick”. But that sentiment overlooks the reality of this campaign. Voters didn’t respond to mudslinging against the Coalition. They responded to substance. The strategy of division didn’t stick. It backfired.
For many Aboriginal people, this campaign was another exhausting chapter in a long history of being vilified for political gain, treated like political footballs. After campaigning hard against the Voice to parliament, Dutton could have shown some humility or a willingness to listen. Instead, he kept attacking us, our culture, our traditions, our very presence in the national story.
When Dutton announced he would not stand in front of an Aboriginal flag if elected prime minister, Australians noticed. They rejected the idea that the nation’s First Peoples are the problem. They voted for leadership grounded in values, not vendettas.
While I was waiting to vote in South Melbourne on election day, I struck up a conversation with two people ahead of me in the line. One spoke about being exhausted by the constant media focus on division rather than unity. The other, who wasn’t connected to the first, said their biggest worry was finding somewhere to rent. They were sick of political distractions when the cost-of-living crisis was clearly such a major issue.
It made me think that what people most wanted was a parliament focused on how we can survive and thrive, despite the serious challenges facing our economy and the pressures on social cohesion both here and around the world. In other words, people wanted politicians who would show up each day and do the job they were elected to do, not point fingers and name call.
Dutton was one of the figures pushing a divisive political agenda, but this wasn’t just about one man. It was part of a broader approach that Australians have now firmly rejected. Mine was hardly a representative sample group, but it was enough to reassure me as I walked into the voting booth that we were unlikely to go down that path.
And while some people were busy being keyboard warriors, loudly supporting the anti–Welcome to Country stance online, it appears now that they were a vocal minority.
This election result should be a clear message to all political leaders on all sides: attacking minorities is not, and never will be, a path to power. In other parts of the world, we have seen what happens when politics leans too heavily into fear and division. Australia has chosen a different path, and rightly so. We need leadership that unites us, respects difference, and focuses on what really matters to people’s lives.
Jessa Rogers is Associate Professor of Indigenous Education in the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne.
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