Senior Indigenous medico Dr Louis Peachey explains his profound sense of relief about how Australians voted at the federal election, and urges the Liberal Party to embrace a different style of leadership.
Louis Peachey writes:
On the evening of 3 May, 2025, election expert Anthony Green called the election in favour of the Australian Labor Party. Among Indigenous Australians, there was great relief.
Had Peter Dutton become Prime Minister, it was almost certain that Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price would have led a pogrom to persecute Indigenous Australians, as a distraction from other more serious concerns.
That moment reminded me of Churchill’s reaction to finding out that President Roosevelt would bring the USA onto the side of the Allied Forces in late 1941. Churchill’s memoir recorded: “Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”
In the lead up to the election, I was asked by colleagues, what First Nations issues would I like to see brought to the fore in the election campaign. I responded by noting that for as long as I can recall, the most favourable thing that can happen for my people during an election campaign is to be not mentioned at all.
During the 2023 Voice referendum campaign, Peter Dutton enjoyed great success in unifying a significant portion of the Australian population with a scary narrative as to how allowing Indigenous Australians to be heard by our federal politicians would undermine the very fabric of our society.
He successfully exploited the fact that few Australians have ever read the Australian constitution. Figures from the No campaign frequently raised their concern that the proposed amendment would introduce Race into the constitution, evidently oblivious to the fact that Race already exists in section 25 and section 51(xxvi).
The Coalition then took the tactic of peddling fear into the 2025 election campaign. They were strong on critique, but exceedingly thin on substance.
During the Leaders Debate on Wednesday, 16 April, Peter Dutton was asked if he agreed that the effects of climate change were worsening, to which he responded by noting, “I don’t know because I’m not a scientist…”.
The following day he did attempt to clarify that he did believe climate change was real, but given how straightforward the question was which had been posed to him, needing to wait until the following day to affirm climate change was real simply appeared disingenuous.
Thus building nuclear reactors, to be completed 20 years from now, at a cost of $600 billion, to combat a climate crisis he was evidently not confident was real, was simply too much of a stretch.
Senator Price’s plea to Make Australia Great Again, and the Coalition’s slogan to get Australia ‘Back on Track’ were such an odd way to describe Australia.
We are at tenth place on the Human Development Index, in a tie with the Netherlands. Our Debt to GDP ratio is just a little over half the average for the OECD, in a far better position than the United Kingdom or the USA.
We are one of only 11 countries to maintain a Triple A Credit Rating (along with Canada, Denmark, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland).
Making Australia Great Again also lacks resonance because as Australians we are largely an understated people. Yes, in Australia it is acceptable to brag about sporting prowess or achievement, but in every other aspect of Australian life, we are more comfortable with restraint and modesty.
When one asks a fellow Australian how they are faring, the response of “Can’t Complain” is about as joyous as our culture allows us to respond. Australia values the quiet achiever; boasting and beating our chest is unseemly. This is equally true for First Nations Australians.
During the last 60 years, two-thirds of us have emerged from poverty into the middle class, and our elders achieved this in the absence of fanfare.
Much of the philosophy of the modern liberal democratic project is founded on the concept of competition driving human achievement, described as “Survival of the Fittest”. But closer to the truth is that the success of our species lay less in competition than our capacity to cooperate.
Co-authors Dr Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods described “Survival of the Friendliest” in their 2020 book of that title.
To me the message that came from the 2025 Australian federal election was the power of grace and gratitude, which was on display in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s acceptance speech, which followed the concession by the Leader of the Opposition.
Indeed, had Peter Dutton been as gracious in his campaign as he was in his concession speech, we may have seen a different outcome.
Following the 2022 Australian Federal Election, having lost a slew of seats to Teal candidates, Peter Dutton drew his party further towards the right.
It is unclear how he came to believe that moving further to the right would improve the Liberal Party’s chances of clawing back the new teal seats.
It is my hope now that the Liberal Party might embrace its own name, and choose a leader who better displays the qualities of being Liberal.
Author details
Dr Louis Peachey is from Girrimay, Djirribal, Quandamooka and Badtjala ancestors. He is a highly respected Rural Generalist and medical educator, as well as a mentor for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors and medical students. Founding president of the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, he was awarded Life Fellowship of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM), and was instrumental in establishing the College’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members group. He is based in the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland. Read more here and here.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the 2025 federal election
