Playing hard or being ‘reckless’? Dutton ramps up attack

Peter Dutton admitted in a 2023 episode of the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet that he is very much a black-and-white thinker. The lens through which the alternative prime minister views the world leaves little room for shades of grey.

“I think [it’s] a bit of a police trait,” the former officer said.

He is one of the most pro-Israel conservative leaders in any comparable country. From the moment Foreign Minister Penny Wong called for Israeli “restraint and the protection of civilian lives” after Hamas’ October 7 slaughter, which she condemned, Dutton’s instincts led him to pick what he deemed the side of the majority.

Peter Dutton gets a round of applause at a Coalition party room meeting last year.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

He has led a cultural assault on Labor, his second after the Voice referendum, dominating the airwaves for much of the past 15 months despite polls showing most Australians have no interest in taking sides amid an inflation crisis.

His rhetoric has prompted opponents to accuse Dutton of “grotesque”, trumped-up politics. This month, he blamed Anthony Albanese for “every incident” of antisemitism, echoing similar remarks from Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. On Friday, he claimed Wong was unfit to represent Australia at a Holocaust remembrance at Auschwitz. Teal MP Zali Steggall labelled him a racist for loudly scrutinising the vetting of Palestinian refugees.

It’s hard to see black-and-white Dutton emulating conservative icon Ronald Reagan, who in the early 1980s had a photo of an injured Lebanese boy on his desk as he pressured Israel to pull out of Lebanon.

Dutton has kept rising in the polls in the months he has made the antisemitism thrust central to a broader narrative on what he calls Australia’s decline: a weakly led nation with unsafe streets and anxiety about its identity in an unstable world.

Dutton’s rhetorical argument that Labor was “abandoning” Australia’s Jewish diaspora ramped up as the number – and severity – of antisemitic acts rose, sharpening the focus on Labor’s response.

Albanese has a list of initiatives when it comes to protecting Jewish Australians. Outlawing doxxing, banning the Nazi salute and setting up an antisemitism task force that is now laying charges.

Yet last week, Albanese only called a national cabinet meeting after dismissing Dutton’s urgings for months, spurred by a shocking arson at a Sydney childcare centre near a synagogue. The prime minister can look flat-footed and slow to respond to the gravity of the moment, opening the door for Dutton. Albanese took four days to attend the Adass synagogue in Melbourne when it was firebombed in December, a day after Dutton.

“If the prime minister thinks that he’s going to get the Australian public off his back and that he’ll have some reprieve from the media by holding this meeting, he doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation,” Dutton said on Tuesday.

“This is a national crisis. We are having rolling terrorist attacks in our community.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton addresses members of the Jewish community at St Kilda Synagogue April last year.Credit: Eddie Jim

Dutton, a former home affairs minister, is playing to his strengths when the opposition casts Labor as weak on security. The Coalition went to town on the community safety risks after crimes were committed following the release of 130 detainees after a High Court case. They have demanded scrutiny of the visas granted to Gazan refugees. A continuing theme is Dutton’s argument that Labor has allowed in too many migrants during a housing shortage.

This is Dutton’s happy place, according to Lidia Ivanovski, the ex-chief of staff to Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles. “He feels very comfortable in this space,” the influential lobbyist said, “and he’s prepared to put politics ahead of the good of the nation.

“To blame Anthony for these antisemitic attacks is reckless. It doesn’t help calm the situation in Australia and helps nobody but himself. He proved with the Voice he is willing to burn down the house for a win, and he’s showing again he’ll do whatever it takes to pry Anthony from his seat.”

Some commentators have questioned why Dutton has spent so much time on the Middle East when the Jewish population is small relative to the Muslim one. Just a few key Liberal target seats – Goldstein, Wentworth and Bradfield – contain many Jewish voters. But the question misunderstands the broader political play, explained candidly by Nationals’ leader David Littleproud.

Off the back of the rise in antisemitic violence, Littleproud said in an interview: “We’ll now be asking – do you feel better off after three years, but also, do you feel safer after three years?

“That’s the new front, a second question that Albanese has allowed to be opened up.”

Littleproud said Albanese failed to pick up the need to forcefully use his authority to push against agitators trying to import the conflict. Albanese defends this charge by saying he has condemned attacks at every stage.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has explained how the coalition is campaigning on fear.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Just like in his first cultural battle with Labor, the Voice referendum, Dutton has been castigated by his opponents in the debate over Gaza and antisemitism.

Albanese has been bogged down for more than a year in the poisonous domestic debate over the war in Gaza. It has distracted from Labor’s policy agenda, often muddying Labor’s message during parliamentary sessions.

Dutton characterises Albanese as unable to stand with the intimidated Jewish community out of fear of angering Muslim Australians and pro-Palestine Greens, just as Dutton cast Albanese as in thrall to left-wing activists in the referendum.

Liberal MP Michael Sukkar draws the strings together: “Albanese’s shameful response to antisemitism in Australia is the equivalent to the Voice 2.0. A dithering, unsure and weak leader standing on the wrong side of mainstream Australia.”

The opposition leader’s instincts on antisemitism and crime align with the pugnacious populism personified by Donald Trump. The US president’s stunning return to power has given the Coalition a boost in confidence, though Dutton has been cautious in yielding to Trump backers, including key donor Gina Rinehart, who want him to ape Trump.

Dutton this week affirmed his commitment to the Paris climate agreement that Trump abandoned; declined to weigh into Trump’s declaration on the existence of only two genders; and last year rejected a debate on abortion laws spurred by frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Dutton visited the firebombed Adass Israel synagogue before Albanese did.Credit: Eddie Jim

Dutton has crossed across the country this month, making micro-announcements that often fit into the law-and-order narrative. He has pledged more money for Crime Stoppers and nationally consistent knife laws.

The prime minister’s announcements rarely, if ever, touch on community safety and instead focus on things voters can touch and feel: roads, broadband, childcare, aquatic centres, housing, and wages, casting him in the mould of a service delivery-focused state premier.

This masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor shows Dutton’s biggest policy advantage on Labor is on countering crime and antisocial behaviour, on which he has a 22-point lead. Crime is now the third most salient concern among voters in the Freshwater poll, rising above climate change.

Labor sources said attacks on Dutton’s character would not be as prominent a feature of the months leading up to the election as warnings on his thin economic policy agenda, criticised this week by the Institute of Public Affairs. Labor will also hone in on the financial risks posed by nuclear energy and the prospect of cuts to healthcare and pro-worker policies.

Running hard on crime, antisemitism, and a society he suggests is fraying, Dutton has taken a 39-34 preferred prime minister lead against Albanese in the Resolve Political Monitor, indicating Labor is yet to get its line and length right on the opposition leader.

Dutton has held roundtables on local crime with voters in suburban Melbourne seats of Aston and McEwen this month.

One unnamed Coalition MP said this week the opposition’s emphasis on issues such as antisemitism was important, but not focusing on the cost of living gave the impression the Coalition was a “one-trick pony”.

Voter perceptions of crime and actual crime rates are not always aligned. But state government actions indicate that a real problem exists. Street crime was at the centre of last year’s Queensland state election. NSW Premier Chris Minns last year passed new youth crime laws and ruled out raising the age of criminal responsibility. Victorian youth crime is the highest it has been since 2010. Coles this week banned the sale of knives following another high-profile stabbing, this time with a blade purchased from a Coles store.

“Weak leaders create hard times,” Dutton said in his first speech of the year on January 12. “And the next federal election is a sliding doors moment for our nation. A newly elected Coalition government is a last chance to reverse the decline.”

As a bolshie first-term backbencher, Albanese labelled new prime minister John Howard a “weak man” without vision. The remarks mirrored comments to this masthead two weeks ago when he labelled Dutton a divider with a “small” vision.

Liberal operatives believe Labor’s attacks on Dutton’s character could backfire. What Labor describes as negativity, swinging voters might see as his strength.

The world Dutton describes in his radio interviews and doorstops in country towns can often paint a bleak picture of Australia: besieged by criminals and weakened by woke causes tearing down traditional values.

His gloomy rhetoric about the national mood casts him as the country’s polemicist-in-chief. The election will test if, as polling is increasingly suggesting, voters think his uncompromising style shows he’s got what it takes to lead the nation in tough times.

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