Inside the Coalition's work-from-home policy debacle
Peter Dutton’s work-from-home policy never went to shadow cabinet, which left it riddled with risk. Now the Liberal Party is working out how to pick up the pieces.
In his press conference announcing that he was junking a controversial policy to force public servants out of work-from-home arrangements on Monday morning, Peter Dutton was asked whether it would have ever materialised in the first place if the Coalition had more women in its shadow cabinet.
But multiple senior party sources have confirmed to Capital Brief that the policy never went to shadow cabinet, and that some frontbenchers voiced reservations about the move prior to it being announced. Asked to confirm that the policy was not approved by the full shadow cabinet, the Coalition headquarters did not respond to this publication.
The revelation raises serious questions about the way policy has been formulated by the Opposition, as Dutton seeks to reset his ailing campaign in the first leaders debate against Anthony Albanese on Sky News on Tuesday night.
The decision to backflip on the work-from-home crackdown, and scale back public service cuts to natural attrition rather than forced redundancies, is widely seen internally as a necessary course of action. But it has opened Dutton up to fresh questions on his policy offering, including how he will pay for everything he has promised.
