Dutton pitches suburban battler roots, calls for ‘education not indoctrination’
By Paul Sakkal
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has highlighted his suburban battler upbringing during his unofficial election campaign launch in the Melbourne seat of Chisholm, where he nominated public safety, lower inflation, cheaper energy and affordable housing as policy priorities for the Coalition.
Speaking to supporters in an electorate his party lost to Labor in 2022, Dutton was eager to talk up his working-class background before outlining how he intended to get Australia “back on track”, in line with the Coalition’s election slogan.
He told the crowd about his plans to ease inflation by lowering government spending; he outlined changes to immigration and foreign ownership in a bid to improve housing affordability; he expressed his desire to address community safety; and he committed to “push back on identity politics”.
“The expensive Panadol policies must stop,” he told the supportive crowd consisting largely of volunteers, candidates and sitting MPs. “The necessary economic surgery to stop wasteful spending must start.”
Dutton opened his speech with a reflection on his working-class upbringing and his work as a Queensland police officer, saying his hard-working nature had allowed him to prosper, in comments reminiscent of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s oft-repeated story of growing up in public housing with his single mum.
“I was born into an outer suburbs working-class family. Mum and Dad – a secretary and bricklayer – didn’t have much money, but they worked hard every day, and raised their five children with love, support and a strong work ethic,” he said.
“From grade 7 through to university, I threw newspapers, had a lawn mowing run, and worked in a butcher’s shop after school and on Saturdays.
“I saved diligently to afford a house deposit. Buying my first home aged 19 was one of my proudest achievements.”
Dutton previously sold a beachfront home on the Gold Coast for $6 million and was a beneficiary of a family trust, alongside his wife, that owned her company, RHT Investments, which ran two childcare centres. Albanese has repeatedly hinted at Dutton’s use of a trust to cast doubt on the opposition leader’s asset holdings.
Labor was quick to rubbish Dutton’s “policy-free” speech, which came days after the prime minister finished a rapid tour of northern states that he said had helped get him match fit for an election due by May but likely to be held in April.
Labor says Dutton’s policies will lead to lower wages growth and less job security, and Albanese, in an interview with this masthead last week, derided Dutton’s small vision and his relentless negativity.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said Dutton had “more front than Myer” and that he had come back from summer leave “with no solutions, no plan” and trying to “present himself as somehow the saviour of everybody”.
In his speech to supporters, Dutton said the Liberals were “back in town” in the Labor-dominated state of Victoria, where his state colleagues recently voted to oust John Pesutto and appoint Brad Battin as leader. Battin was present at the launch along with his deputy, Sam Groth.
Victoria has taken on new-found significance in Coalition calculations. The party is confident of winning Labor and teal seats in Aston, Chisholm, McEwen and Goldstein. It is also targeting Kooyong, Dunkley, Hawke and Bruce.
Dutton is expected to travel to the Melbourne seat of Aston on Monday with a focus on crime prevention.
Federal frontbenchers Sussan Ley, Angus Taylor, Michael Sukkar, Michaelia Cash, James Paterson and National Party leader David Littleproud were also among the attendees.
In his speech, the Liberal leader weaved his personal story and economic agenda with occasional thrusts into cultural issues, demanding “education not indoctrination” in schools and drawing arguably his biggest round of applause when he repeated his preference for one national flag rather than three with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island flags.
Citing the reintroduction of the cashless debit card and an audit of Indigenous spending, Dutton claimed the Coalition would focus on real solutions to fix Indigenous disadvantage rather than what he called symbolic “gestures”.
“As Jacinta Price said, it’s time to dispense with the racial stereotyping which treats all Aboriginal people the same,” he said.
He also used his speech to defend his record as health minister, in response to Labor attacks, when he attempted to institute a $7 payment to see a doctor and the Health Department sought to privatise the backroom payments system of Medicare.
He committed to strengthening Medicare in his speech and trumpeted his creation as health minister of a Medicare research fund.
Of Labor’s attacks, he said: “They need a new playsheet, honestly.”
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