It’s not often an economist offers something for nothing. But I’m happy to make an exception in this case by providing advice to the leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton – no charge. Let’s face it, he needs it.

Like leaning on a slab of granite, the impression he is currently leaving on the voting public is zero. I guess it could be worse – it could be net negative. But then again, it actually could be net negative.

I know it’s early days and it’s hard for Dutts to establish a clear role for himself after the defeat of the Morrison government and its betrayal of so many principles to which any self-respecting centre-right party should adhere. At the same time, it’s difficult to completely trash the reputation of that government because this could be confusing to voters.

It would be relatively easy to admit to excessive spending in the context of Covid; to concede that the national cabinet was a crazy idea and worse in practice; and to accept that the multi-ministered ScoMo was wrong to go along with the state-imposed lockdowns, border restrictions and vaccine mandates. In its rawest form, it was an unjustified extension of authoritarian big government.

A while ago, I argued that the 2022 federal election would be a good one to lose for either side of politics. Given the number and severity of the problems coming down the pike, my argument was that it could be a good term for any political party to sit out. I still think that’s basically right.

But my new view is that the 2019 federal election would have been a good one for the Coalition to lose. Faced with the challenges associated with the pandemic and the lunatic advice from all those health ‘experts’, Scott Morrison and most of his colleagues completely lost sight of the values that should have been driving their decisions. No longer can the Coalition claim to be superior economic managers and its complete disregard of the rights of individuals has queered their political pitch for a long time to come. And had the Coalition been in opposition, I find it hard to believe they would have signed up to net zero by 2050.

One problem for Dutts is that a substantial rump of Liberal parliamentarians – the wets/moderates/in the wrong party types – don’t want to trash the record of the Morrison government. They think a return of Josh Frydenberg as the leader is now the way forward. They think that the Liberal party should now support the Voice. They have a lot in common with the dills who opposed Brexit. (Danger warning: Rishi Sunak is just Britain’s version of Malcolm Turnbull.)

So here’s my main piece of advice – set out a clear set of values. Faith, flag and family are always a good starting point. In the context of these increasingly hysterical woke times – think Netball Australia and Pat Cummings as examples – Dutton has the chance to capture the commonsense, conservative centre.

Let’s face it, most people would think it’s completely nuts for a sporting league to knock back $15 million because of something the father of the sponsoring company’s chief said over 40 years ago. Is this for real?  And let’s not forget here this was driven by the hurt feelings of one player. Whatever happened to the notion that it’s the team that matters and there’s no ‘I’ in team. A cliché perhaps but it makes sense.

I remember my pal, John Hyde, member of the dries in the Liberal party, telling me that ultimately elections are an assessment of the character of the leaders. His view was that John Hewson lost the unlosable election not because of the policies he proposed but because the voters had formed a dim view of him, to speak euphemistically. (Fill in here with your choice of rude derogatory terms.)

Dutts has the chance to emerge as a solid family man standing for solid family values that place a high premium on love of country and freedom of religion. He needs to firmly turn his back on all the current woke nonsense and firmly reject identity politics and critical race theory. Australians shouldn’t be made to feel guilty about what has happened in the past and individual rights and responsibilities are far more important than the heavy hand of big government.

One way or another, he has to walk back from the crazy commitment to net zero by 2050 because all the criticisms of the current government’s lunatic climate policies will look inconsistent and unbelievable.

The beauty of this approach is that there can be a clear differentiation with the Labor/Green alliance that currently holds power in Canberra and in most other states. The core belief of this alliance is that large swathes of the population are victims and cannot stand on their own two feet. Without the intrusive and expensive government intervention, they will fall further behind.

Inevitably, these ‘victims’ are denied agency. When the programs inevitably fail and have been found to be much more expensive than originally anticipated, a blame game erupts. The sad thing is that the most common response is along the lines that poor program design or implementation or funding has been the problem. It’s akin to those who claim that it wasn’t socialism that failed but the failure to implement it properly.

But if the political contest is essentially about the relative technical competence of the two sides of politics to operate a big government (should that be ‘brother’?) administration, it’s not clear why the Liberal party has any comparative advantage. The wets might think so, although their backgrounds are generally quite similar to Labor parliamentarians – average university degree, years as a political staffer, manoeuvring for pre-selection, term in parliament, lucrative post-political career in lobbying.

Peter Dutton’s Budget Reply Speech did have some kernels of good ideas. Supporting nuclear energy is sensible but needs to go beyond just platitudes. He really needs to take it up to the government on this point – their smart-arse comments about ‘expensive’ nuclear need to be addressed. (Nuclear energy overseas has been an expensive source of electricity because of its massive overregulation. Small modular reactors promise to change all this.)

Allowing individuals to access their own superannuation to buy a home is also a sensible and differentiating idea. The Treasurer thinks it’s fine for superannuation funds to invest in residential real estate but won’t dream of allowing individuals to make their own choices. Falling educational standards is another fertile field for the Coalition.

Ultimately, it’s only a set of strong values that will allow the Coalition to regain government.