MP who quipped Peter Dutton resembles Harry Potter villain should practice what she preaches

As a former policeman, there’s no doubt Peter Dutton has heard worse than being compared to Harry Potter villain Voldemort. It’s the self-indulgence and hypocrisy of Tanya Plibersek’s barb that really bites, writes Michael Madigan.

Just a few decades ago Labor MP Tanya Plibersek’s suggestion that Peter Dutton looks a little like “Voldemort’’ would have been treated for what it really is – a mildly amusing, largely inconsequential insult.

Today it has actually become an “issue’’ – one that requires the intervention and commentary of the Prime Minister himself.

It should be noted that something so frivolous could become a controversy is not the fault of Dutton who, as an ex-cop, has almost certainly been called a lot worse and shrugged it off.

Outgoing Defence Minister and Federal Liberal member for Dickson, Peter Dutton. Picture: Zak Simmonds

The problem lies more with Plibersek and all those fellow travellers who so loudly insist that

we all treat one another with respect, courtesy and compassion when so many ordinary Australians know perfectly well what they really mean.

And what they really mean is that people such as themselves and their proxies (anyone sharing their political views, sexual orientation, gender, racial or ethnic identity) should be treated with respect, courtesy and compassion, while they can go on blithely treating anyone outside their circle of acceptability with aggressive contempt.

It happens so often it has moved beyond mere, boilerplate hypocrisy into the realms of comedy.

Labor MP Tanya Plibersek’s suggestion that Peter Dutton looks a little like “Voldemort’’, a villain from the Harry Potter books and movies, would have been treated for what it really is – a mildly amusing, largely inconsequential insult, writes Michael Madigan. Picture: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

A Conservative white male such as Dutton is well aware he is filleted off from those cohorts of humanity which deserve to be treated with respect, courtesy and compassion.

And he no doubt accepts his fate with the same shrug he once gave to the crims who called him a “pig.’’

The lesson here- the “teachable moment’’ as one time US President Barack Obama used to call it – is that perhaps we shouldn’t really try to elevate our moral stature by constantly banging on about how important it is for everyone else to treat everyone else with respect, courtesy and compassion.

We should give it a try ourselves.

Senior Labor MP Tanya Plibersek has apologised for comparing Liberal leadership candidate Petter Dutton to a Harry Potter villain. Picture: ABC News

And, when we discover that it is actually quite difficult to live in that manner, we might stop pointing the accusatory finger at the world, pare back our lofty ambitions about changing other peoples’ behaviour, and simply devote our energies to changing our own.

There’s not much glamour involved in such a project.

You can’t really build a “brand’’ on it, and it certainly won’t get you followers on Twitter.

But, if we pursue it, we might discover a glimmer of truth in the old adage: “Virtue is its own reward.’’

And, if all politicians truly embrace the notion, we as a nation won’t have to be constantly distracted with silly, adolescent, self indulgent nonsense.