Australia has a new prime minister and a new opposition leader. Just who is new Liberal leader Peter Dutton? Is he the leader the Liberals need, to capitalise on the tremendous shift in political allegiances that showed in the election result?
Scott Morrison only narrowly beat Peter Dutton in the second round of voting in the second 2018 leadership spill against the egregious Malcolm Turnbull. How times change: Morrison is the defeated ex-prime minister and Dutton has finally ascended to the leadership. True, taking leadership of an opposition party immediately after an election is almost always a kiss of death, but Dutton may well have the political mongrel to make a proper meal of it.
New Liberal leader Peter Dutton says his leadership will focus on the “forgotten Australians” in suburban and rural Australia, as he claims there will be tough times ahead under the Albanese government.
Mr Dutton said the party he leads “won’t be Labor lite” as vowed to turn the Coalition into a viable alternative ahead of the 2025 election.
New PM Anthony Albanese and Dutton have signalled that they have a mutually-respecting relationship. To his credit, Albanese quickly slapped down one of his senior MPs for making childish jokes at Dutton’s expense. He also says that, “Peter Dutton has never broken a confidence that I’ve had with him”. A rare compliment in politics.
Still, that doesn’t mean that Dutton is going to give the new government an easy run, as he’s already showing.
“We will have presented a plan to the Australian people which will clean up Labor’s inevitable mess and lay out our own vision,” Mr Dutton said.
“Make no mistake, and Australians understand this, the next three years under Labor is going to be tough for the Australian people.
“Already they’re breaking promises and foreshadowing policy shifts. They weren’t ready to govern.”
One thing Dutton can be sure of is that the legacy media, most especially the taxpayer-funded left-wing behemoth, the ABC, will go absolutely feral on his leadership as they did with Scott Morrison (and every Liberal leader since Malcolm Fraser): but Morrison lacked the spine to crash through. Dutton seems to be made of sterner stuff.
New Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton said he was not going to change, but believed being leader would allow Australians to see the totality of his personality.
“I’ve been in the community, a notionally Labor electorate, I won that electorate eight times in a row and people on the ground can see, in a more wholesome way, who I am,” he said. “Hopefully you can tell a different story that I’m not as bad as the ABC might sometimes report.”
When asked if he would smile, Mr Dutton said: “the ABC always brings a smile to my face”.
Dutton is saying publicly that he won’t, as former PM Tony Abbott (one of just four Liberal leaders to win government from opposition) advises, abandon wealthy, former blue-ribbon Liberal seats to the clanging empty teal vessels. But his colleagues are also arguing that he is a Liberal leader to capitalise on the tremendous opportunities open to the party in regional and often once-red-ribbon-Labor suburban seats.
Liberal Senator Gerard Rennick says he’ll support Peter Dutton as the party’s leader due to his ability to “represent the working class”.
Senator Rennick told Sky News as he was walking into parliament this morning that protecting the working class should be front of mind.“(Mr Dutton) has held Dixon, that’s a working class suburb, for 20 years. You know people have always said it’s a marginal, but he has held it for 20 years and that’s because he represents the working class,” Senator Rennick said.
The Senator also said Mr Dutton doesn’t need to “soften his image”.
The Australian
“Peter is a very nice guy, he is very polite, I think a lot of the image has actually been portrayed by people on the left who have basically used rude habits like Tanya Plibersek,” Senator Rennick said.
Dutton will probably never grace the covers of glossy ladies mags, like Jacinda Ardern — but who cares? Ultimately, politics is about delivering, not playing dress-ups for frivolous gossip mags.