Peter Dutton has made a dramatic about-turn a week into the election campaign after Liberal Party research revealed a previously unheard-of demographic, colloquially known as ‘women’.
Liberal Party strategists said they were hearing more and more about the mysterious voter bloc in focus groups and telephone polling, with some estimates suggesting the demographic could make up a quarter or even a third of the voting public.
“I’d heard rumours about a grouping such as this in the past – apparently some of the team had even met a lady before. But we’d never thought it was serious thing,” a party insider said.
He said he started to twig last week when new polling data emerged. “We started looking into it and all of a sudden they’re everywhere. You know that thing that happens when you’re looking to buy a certain type of car and then suddenly you see it everywhere? It was like that.
“They’ve got jobs, they own houses, they buy things. Apparently some of them were even in the Liberal Party before we bullied them out and they left to run as independents. It’s incredible really.
“So we felt it was important to let Peter know straight away so he could adjust his strategy accordingly”.
Dutton said he would start to consider ‘women’ in his new strategy announcements, including making sure that some of the 41,000 public service workers that he is promising to sack, are women.
