1 week Ago By Paul Sakkal
Peter Dutton knew he had to kill his work-from-home decree just halfway through the first week of the election campaign. Coalition MPs were reporting a backlash from voters who thought, wrongly, that he intended to force every worker back to the office even if that meant being stuck on trains or in traffic away from the kids. By the middle of last week, Dutton decided the only solution was to make a captain’s call and fully own up.
He had the option of “taking the trash out” (when politicians try to bury bad news) in a low-key manner on Friday or Saturday, when he started to walk back the pledge by saying it applied only to Canberrans. But so widespread was the worry about the flexible work plan’s contribution to the Coalition’s worsening poll numbers , particularly among the white-collar women who deserted Scott Morrison, Dutton’s team decided to give the backflip maximum exposure on Monday morning. “Thank f- - -”, one senior MP said when they learned on Sunday afternoon of the looming about-face.
Loading Ditching the work-from-office edict and blunting a plan to cut 41,000 public service jobs hollowed out Dutton’s agenda at a time when Labor is labelling Dutton policy-lite. It raised questions about the opposition’s ability to find fiscal savings and meant the start of the campaign’s second week was spent cleaning up a mess. Dutton’s early stumbles mean his MPs are placing more importance than normal on his performance in Tuesday’s first leaders’ debate before the Easter school holidays take attention away from the campaign.
A trickle of complaints from colleagues about Hume’s original March 3 announcement fell on deaf ears, but turned into a flood once the MPs spent more time talking to voters in the campaign..
