’In his DNA’: Peter Dutton returns to law and order ahead of 2025 election
Locking up bad guys comes naturally to ex-cop Peter Dutton. It’s in his DNA. So it’s no surprise to see him play to his strengths ahead of the federal election. Will it work with Australians?
NSW
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“He has been protecting young people his entire career, it’s a part of his DNA” — that is how one close colleague describes opposition leader Peter Dutton.
It was this lifelong tough guy act that Dutton put on display front and centre in the crucial pre-election weeks this month, making it clear that law and order is at the top of the agenda should the former cop make it all the way to the Lodge.
Acting tough, catching criminals and locking up the bad guys is familiar territory to the former Home Affairs, Defence and Immigration Minister. And it’s a narrative that has led Liberal leaders to victory in recent months.
Dutton has seized the momentum that brought David Crisafuli and Lia Finocchiaro to power in Queensland and the NT respectively.
As his Nationals colleague Barnaby Joyce foreshadowed in a passionate social media post in November last year, law and order will be “an issue at the next federal election, even though it is a state (issue).”
“In the south they wonder why one issue can define two elections — one in Queensland and the other in the Northern Territory,” Joyce said of Crisafuli and Finocchiaro victories last year.
Coalition sources say the southern states are now also starting to resonate with an election pitch on tackling crime with growing violence in Victoria and NSW, including a recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks that Dutton has been quick to call out.
With Dutton consistently calling out anti-Semitism — long before the recent escalation in violence that has seen cars torched and synagogues attacked weekly — he’s cemented his authority on an issue that shows no signs of dissipating before the election.
His instincts are backed by recent polling showing 26 per cent of voters ranked a focus on crime and social order as one of their top three issues — up 11 per cent from 2022.
Overall, out of 26 options, crime and social order ranked fifth in the things people wanted the Commonwealth to focus on, according to the research from the Australian Financial Review.
Where Albanese took his pre-election roadshow to a cattle station in the NT, a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic and a PCYC in Cairns, Dutton fired off his counter campaign with a visit to an IGA worker who had been confronted with a machete.
He’s previously promised uniform knife laws across the country, and the Coalition will head to the polls on its signature “post and boast policy”, which would make it illegal to post crimes on social media for notoriety.
“One of the core strengths of a Coalition government is law and order, and making sure that we can put everything possible in place to keep people safe,” Dutton said earlier this month.
But an election fought on law and order is a lot easier in states and territories where governments have jurisdiction over the police, points out Monash University politics expert Professor Zareh Ghazarian.
“The coalition and Peter Dutton is seeking to make crime a really important symbolic issue at this election, we can see that through the announcements made, the funding, the continued discussion on crime that the Coalition thinks this will resonate with a lot of voters,“ Ghazarian told the Saturday Telegraph.
“By highlighting crime it goes to the narrative that the government is — in their view — failing Australians in this area.”
But Ghazarian said an election agenda that’s heavy on crime can be a “double-edged sword”.
“While the federal government has some responsibility over issues concerning crimes, it’s mostly the states.
“The Coalition has to be mindful of what they are promising is something a national government can deliver.”
Ghazarian says Labor has “left law and order off the agenda”.
“The government’s approach is hamstrung by the fact they can’t do much on law and order (federally), so their strategy is focused on cost of living and economics so they’ve left law and order off the agenda,” he said.
“But now that this is coming into play, I expect the government’s approach to crime to come under further scrutiny.”
Ghazarian flagged cybercrime, border protection and immigration detention as areas a federal government could campaign on for Law and Order.
Liberal sources said more policies on border protection and maritime surveillance — an area the opposition has attacked Labor on — are being mulled over ahead of the election.
The common link between drug offences and youth crime is also being looked at because it is the Commonwealth that has control over Australian borders, and as one Liberal source points out: “all our drugs come from overseas”.
Opposition attack dog Phil Thompson will be reminding voters of the Albanese government’s handling of the High Court’s NZYQ decision which saw the release of several immigration detainees with confronting criminal records.
“In Townsville, the number one, two and three issues are crime,” the MP said.
“Last night, tonight and tomorrow night, someone’s home is going to be broken into (so) I do think crime and crime prevention will play a role in any election, whether it’s state, federal or local.
“It’s something I will be talking about, I’m sure others in the Coalition will be talking about.”
Garth Hamilton, one of the key Liberal architects of the opposition’s post and boast policy, also said the federal government had a role to play in crime.
“All three levels of government have a role to play, the council’s CCTV and lighting, states have control of police, and we have a role to play in stopping the drugs that drive the crime,” he said.
“What I was raising two years ago in Queensland, we are now seeing in Victoria and NSW.”
Hamilton said the Coalition’s steady reliance on law and order as a key election issue was not a “strategy” rather, Peter Dutton “just being Peter.”
But Labor sources were quick to downplay the role law and order could play in the election with one MP saying for most Australians, cost of living was still the biggest issue on their mind: “If Peter Dutton wants to run the election on law and order and we run on the economy, that is a great outcome for us.”
Another Labor source said Australians were smart enough to see through Dutton’s “macho” man act.
“It’s offensive that he is so desperate to project strength as being macho, people are smarter than that.”
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