In the week after the Liberals’ disastrous result in the Aston by-election, Peter Dutton finally came to a firm position on a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to parliament: he would oppose it. But he wasn’t only against something: he was in favour of things too. Specifically, he wanted symbolic constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, and legislated local Voices.

We haven’t heard much about those proposals in recent months. A suggestion from Dutton that he would hold a second referendum to deliver constitutional recognition – which received significant attention from the press - was quickly disposed of.

Illustration: Jim PavlidisCredit:

In other words, time made undeniable what should have been obvious to close observers at the time: the positive elements Dutton put forward were never the main game. They were, in effect, an alibi: a positive alternative to point to while prosecuting a sharply negative campaign.

About the negative campaign itself, as some noted at the time, Dutton may have had little choice. It would have been exceedingly difficult to coax the entire Coalition into supporting the Voice; perhaps even into taking some middle line and neither supporting nor opposing it. Doing so would have risked a damaging internal dispute. After Aston, the announcement brought the side together in common cause (notwithstanding the resignation of Indigenous affairs spokesman Julian Leeser) and reminding MPs that Dutton was one of them.

Two weeks ago, the Liberals lost another byelection. This one was different: the Liberals got a swing towards them. The general political consensus, though, was that the Dunkley result was fairly boring. What was interesting: a few days later, Dutton seemed to repeat his post-Aston behaviour, with a reinvigorated push on a new policy, this time on nuclear energy.

It was hard to know precisely how planned out this was. Initial reports added little to what had been reported a few weeks earlier – that the Coalition would announce sites for six nuclear reactors – except the fact the announcement would have other details, such as on waste disposal, and a date, before the budget.

By last week, that date had firmed up: we will now find out the sites within a fortnight. Since the first reports we have also seemed to get a shift away from small modular reactors to the possibility of building larger reactors. (This will be interesting, too, should it happen: a year to the day before the Dunkley byelection, Dutton said he was opposed to “the establishment of big nuclear facilities”.)

Whatever the shape of the final policy, there are two fascinating parallels with Dutton’s post-Aston opposition to the Voice. The first is that the important thing is not the policy but what the policy allows Dutton to avoid. As with ending Indigenous disadvantage, he avoids a fight with Labor over whether the issue itself – in this case climate change – is important. This is a confirmation of the political framework put in place by Scott Morrison, in which the question is not whether emissions should be reduced but about how to do so.