Liberal MPs continue to blast Peter Dutton for Turnbull comments

Coalition MPs have blasted Peter Dutton, accusing him of “desperately” wanting to keep his seat at the expense of the Morrison Government after his comments on Malcolm Turnbull this week.

Peter Dutton has been slammed by his colleagues over fresh comments he made about Malcolm Turnbull.

Coalition MPs have accused Peter Dutton of “desperately” wanting to keep his seat at the expense of the Morrison Government.

Liberal MPs across the country continued to privately express their fury at Mr Dutton’s comments this week outlining why he tried to topple Malcolm Turnbull.

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His allies jumped to his defence, saying the Home Affairs Minister wanted his side of history on the record.

“There are valid criticisms to make of Turnbull, particularly his behaviour during the Wentworth by-election, but this kind of intervention just seems pointless,” one MP said.

Peter Dutton was appointed Home Affairs Minister by former PM Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

“Turnbull did everything he could for Dutton — he appointed him Home Affairs Minister and gave him all those extra powers. You would have thought he would be grateful.”

Another MP said the government had not recovered in Queensland since the toppling of Mr Turnbull, putting Mr Dutton’s marginal seat of Dickson in Brisbane’s outer north at serious risk.

“I suspect this is about raising his profile as he is worried about his seat — although I don’t see why you would want to raise your profile in that way,” the MP said.

In his interview, Mr Dutton accused Mr Turnbull of not having a “political bone in his body” and claimed the government would have lost 25 seats under the former PM.

Mr Dutton challenged Mr Turnbull for the Liberal leadership in August, but was defeated by Scott Morrison.

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Since then, the Coalition has gone from 49-51 per cent down in two-party preferred terms to trailing 45-55.

Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek said the Liberals always stood a better chance under Mr Turnbull.

“Peter Dutton continues to forget that Malcolm Turnbull has consistently been more popular personally than the Liberal Party of Australia has been with the Australian voters, and Peter Dutton misses the fact that the Liberals have gone backwards since they got rid of Malcolm Turnbull,” Ms Plibersek said.

“So I don’t know what Peter Dutton’s been doing over this Christmas break but it’s certainly not been checking in on reality.”

Queensland Liberal MP Ian Macdonald said: “I am not really interested in what happened last year, what I’m focused on is the election in the new year.”

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