Blue-Ribbon Liberals desperately want Peter Dutton to succeed. They want him to stand up and emerge from the Turnbull-Morrison rubble as some kind of conservative saviour. Many are so desperate to see a shred of hope from the Liberal Party that they are there with shovels, digging the Leader of the Opposition out of the dirt, dragging him onto his feet with ropes, and propping him in front of the microphone.

It’s not enough. They prod him every few days but he will not speak beyond the stuttering circles of a man afraid to take a position until a focus group gives him the ‘okay’. The proverb about horses refusing to drink from the oasis applies to Dutton and the elixir of leadership. You cannot will leaders into existence with prayer – they are born fighting and if Dutton was a fighter, he’d never have let Morrison push him off the podium the first time.

Another example of this played out last week when Peter Dutton joined ADH TV’s Alan Jones.

The interview started well enough, with Dutton correctly stating that the Liberal Party cannot go into the next election pretending to be ‘Labor-lite’ because the Australian people are not interested in voting for the Liberals if they are a pale imitation of the Labor Party.

‘That is not the DNA of the Liberal Party,’ said Dutton.

Good man. He’s got the basics locked in. Liberal voters are looking for a Liberal Party. It’s not much, but you have to start somewhere, especially as former Prime Ministers Morrison and Turnbull set a relatively low bar on what it means to be a Liberal.

Alan Jones then presented the issue of the Voice, stating – accurately – that ‘people are bored rigid’ by the discussion. He then said, ‘Isn’t this a simple question? Shouldn’t the Coalition by saying that we will not support inserting a race-based amendment into our Constitution?’

It was a gift of a question for Dutton – a wide open passage through which Dutton could drift to victory if he had even the slightest conservative wind behind him. Instead, he gave this bizarre answer:

Dutton: ‘Well, Alan, at the last election we had a policy that we presented to the electorate which said that we supported a local and regional Voice allowing Indigenous people to offer their thoughts on how the situation might improve for them. I think 99 per cent of Australians have in their hearts a desire to see better outcomes. […] The thing that the government can’t explain is why having a Voice enshrined in the Constitution is going to make a practical difference in the lives of those Indigenous kids and women who are suffering much higher rates than the general people of domestic violence. We’ve said that we want the information, we want to show respect, and we’ll hear the case that the Prime Minister has to put – it keeps changing…’

Alan Jones pushed Dutton further, asking if the Voice proposed to create two categories of Australians – once called apartheid. ‘Out there, they are angry about this.’

Dutton did not answer this point, instead taking the typical ‘I heard a different question’ approach by deflecting to the topic of most Australians being more worried about their power bills. Yes, it is true that Australians are furious about emptying their wallets to keep the lights on but, with respect to the Leader of the Opposition, that is not what he was asked.

Here is the exchange verbatim:

Alan Jones: ‘Shouldn’t, though, the Coalition be telling Australians that this will create two categories of Australians – that was once called apartheid by the way – are we to have Aboriginal Australians (and we don’t know who qualifies as an Aboriginal Australian) but they get two votes and non-Aboriginals get one vote. Out there they are angry about this.’

Peter Dutton: ‘Well, Alan, I get it. In your introduction, you were making a very valid point that for most Australians at the moment, they are worried – frankly – about how they’re going to pay their electricity bill, how they are going to fill up their fuel – you know – in their car, how they’re going to pay the school fees, how they’re going to continue to pay their private health insurance. When they are the issues frankly are front and centre – and Mr Albanese is making policy decisions, along with Jim Chalmers, that is making it much harder than it actually needs to be for families because the policies they are presiding over are driving up inflation and therefore driving up interest rates so – I think that’s the issue.’

It’s like Dutton coughed up a Liberal Party policy furball.

Dutton: ‘In terms of the Constitutional question, the Liberal Party as you know, back to John Howard, has supported recognition in the Constitution for Indigenous Australians but the Voice is something that the Prime Minister has come up with … on some days he says it’s not his initiative. Again, they’re chopping and changing. Australians just want a straight answer from their Prime Minister. So far, they haven’t got it. Our job, in part, as the Opposition is to keep pressure on the Prime Minister for him to release that detail.’

You know who else can’t give a straight answer? Peter Dutton. If the Leader of the Opposition submitted an answer like that to a junior school test he’d be failed.

Alan Jones is a professional and a nice man, so he gave Dutton a second chance, directly asking him where he thinks this ‘black sovereignty’ and Lidia Thorpe fit into the Prime Minister’s vision for the Voice.

Dutton: ‘There’s an element of that within some Indigenous groups, there’s no question about that. And I don’t think that represents anything like a majority view – it’s single digits, in my judgment. But I must say – and I haven’t said this to anyone else yet – but going out to Leonora and places where the damage to humans and the violence driven by grog is just horrific. It’s the furthest thing from their minds that Indigenous…’

Ah well, not everyone can be saved.