Can Peter Dutton turn potential rout into strategic defeat?

Peter Craig Dutton may become the 30^th Prime Minister of Australia not that long after Malcolm Turnbull lost his 30^th consecutive Newspoll, but that is the easy part.

When Turnbull loses the prime ministership it will be more because of his own political and temperamental incompetence than anything else.

While there have been snipers, he is the author of his own demise.

There have been policy missteps, culminating in his disastrous castration of the NEG (which really only had three legs to start with anyway).

Strategic missteps, such as over-egging the chances of winning the Longman and Braddon byelections. Interpersonal missteps, like failing to keep key supporters close enough.

And the final and most fundamental misstep: becoming leader of a party that he tolerated rather than loved.

All of which, and more, led to what is almost an organic leadership coup, that has warriors but doesn’t appear to have leaders.

Turnbull has pulled the whole edifice down on himself, and almost without any effort, Peter Dutton looks to have ended on top (although he may just have paved the way for someone else).

So shambolic was the whole affair that I am aware of key players who weren’t even approached, let alone lobbied, by either side!

Given the genesis of his rise I have no doubt that most of those voting for Dutton don’t expect him to win the next election.

What this is about is turning a rout into a strategic defeat.

Can Dutton do this, or does he turn the rout into a massacre?