Liberal leader caves under pressure from furious female voters and fears of Trump comparison
Peter Dutton has executed a humiliating U-turn on his hardline “back-to-office” policy for public servants after being torched by voters — especially women — and taunted by Labor for morphing into Donald Trump.
The Opposition Leader has now backed away from his bold promise to drag federal public servants back into the office five days a week, a move that had sparked fury among working women and ignited comparisons to the controversial US president.
In an embarrassing reversal, the Coalition now says there will be no changes to the flexible work arrangements currently in place, which allow 61% of Commonwealth staff to work from home — nearly double the national average.
“We have listened, and understand that flexible work, including working from home, is part of getting the best out of any workforce,” Coalition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said in a face-saving statement.
“There will be no mandated minimum number of days for public servants to work in the office.”
The about-face comes amid growing alarm inside the Liberal Party over the haemorrhaging support from younger female voters, particularly in teal seats and suburban battlegrounds, where work-life balance is a ballot-box issue.
Internal polling reportedly revealed that Dutton’s rigid work-from-office plan was becoming electoral poison — especially after Labor ramped up its attacks, accusing him of running a Trumpian campaign out of the Republican playbook.
And it wasn’t just the optics.
Labor had planned to release explosive modelling this week showing that under Dutton’s original plan, the average full-time female worker would be $740 a week worse off, as they’d be forced to reduce hours or quit due to family commitments.
What began as a tough-talking crackdown on remote work quickly morphed into a PR nightmare, with critics comparing Dutton to Trump’s axing of federal work-from-home rights and Elon Musk’s ruthless job-slashing agenda via his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Deliberately making life harder for working women isn’t leadership — it’s lunacy,” one Labor insider said bluntly.
Even the Coalition’s slick slogan “Back on Track” has backfired — with swing voters now linking it to Trump’s populist “Make America Great Again” mantra.
Dutton is still vowing to slash 41,000 public sector jobs, but through natural attrition and a hiring freeze, not the “slash-and-burn” redundancies originally feared. The Coalition claims this will still save $7 billion a year, ballooning to $10 billion over the forward estimates.
But the damage may already be done.
With Trump’s escalating trade war roiling global markets, Dutton has tried to pivot, casting himself as the level-headed economic manager Australians need amid chaos.
“This is a period of uncertainty when we see wild fluctuations in the sharemarket,” he said at a rally in Tasmania.
“Australians who have worked hard all of their lives to put money into their own superannuation funds … are watching with great anxiety.”
But Labor isn’t letting him off the hook.
At a fiery Brisbane rally on Sunday, Anthony Albanese weaponised Trump’s unpopularity, painting Dutton as a political copycat with dangerous ambitions.
“The future we want is not an American-style wages system. Not American levels of student debt. And never, ever American healthcare,” Albanese thundered.
“In this time of uncertainty, we should not try and be more like someone else, or somewhere else.”
Adding to the Coalition’s woes, the party dumped its candidate for the seat of Whitlam, Benjamin Britton, after it was revealed he once argued the defence force should “remove females from combat corps”.
With the May 3 election looming, the Coalition trails Labor 52–48 in the latest Newspoll — and the fear inside Liberal HQ is growing that Dutton’s Trump-lite moment may cost him the Lodge.
