Its opening gambit – to rid the public service of some 40,000 people and deny the remainder in Canberra the right to work from home – had all the hallmarks of a culture war foray. It trades on presumptions about government employees as aloof, overpaid, elite bureaucrats, frequently lazy, usually doing pretend jobs. That this had a Trumpian echo in Elon Musk’s government efficiency mission only added to the sense the Coalition was attempting to profit from the “vibe shift” Donald Trump’s re-election heralded.

The trouble was, the electorate was in no mood for this. Australians’ attitudes to the Trump administration have quickly soured; polling published in this masthead this week showed it is hurting the Coalition. Importantly, this seems to have accelerated once Trump threatened the global economy, not least the stock market, where Australians have their superannuation. In this, Trump became something other than an icon for a certain kind of cultural politics, or some anti-woke resistance, he became real. He became economic. He became dollars and cents and upheaval and anxiety.

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At a time like that, talk of sacking people and restricting their options to work in ways that suit them strikes the ear in a particularly jarring way. Perhaps some voters were deceived by Labor’s attempt to create the impression that the Coalition’s policies would apply to everyone. More likely, they didn’t like where the policy was coming from. If working from home is now presumed to be some kind of inefficient and wasteful rort, what does that say about the 36 per cent of Australians who do so regularly? And what might it mean for their livelihoods if their employers were invited to share that view? In this environment, public servants ceased to be faceless others, and instead became voters’ future selves. Thus rebuked, Peter Dutton retreated.

This election is not, as so many elections are, a battle for each party to get the game played on its turf. It is not Labor wanting to talk health and education while the Coalition talks about boat people and deficits. It’s not the NBN versus the carbon tax. It is not the familiar dance of each party seeking to neutralise issues that don’t suit them, so as to amplify those that do. There is value in that sort of election from time to time, but when it becomes the default, elections become this spectacle of parties talking past each other.

This year, voters’ very real, singular concerns give Dutton and Anthony Albanese no choice but to talk to each other, as we have seen in both leader’s debates.

I don’t claim they’re doing it well. I don’t deny they’re avoiding some enormous, essential questions of our age. But these criticisms are available in most election campaigns. Meanwhile, if we squint, we can discern the seeds of something a bit more like a country in deliberation. And if we pay attention to that, we just might see that seed grow.

Waleed Aly is a broadcaster, author and academic. He is a lecturer in politics at Monash University and co-host of Channel Ten’s The Project.