Dutton is right: big business club is no friend of the Liberals

I agree with Peter Dutton: the big business club is no friend of the Liberal Party (“Dutton lashes corporate executives”, 31/5).

It is quite rational for market winners to favour higher business costs, to protect their market share against new competitors emerging from the small-business ranks. With less compet­ition, big business can pass on those costs to consumers and still charge oligopoly rents. An extreme example of this was the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, created in 2012 by Bill Shorten at the behest of the Transport Workers Union and the big unionised freight companies, who would have cleaned up market share with all the truck owner-operators forced out of business. The best way to raise living standards is to open up markets to new entrants and make the giants fearful for their market share. Dutton is on the money.

James McDonald, Annandale, NSW

At last, a party leader who has had a real job. Labor would be making a disastrous error to underestimate Peter Dutton.

Starting as a policeman, he built highly successful businesses in the real world compared with the bulk of Labor apparatchiks, whose path to leadership has been through useless arts degrees, then straight into the party or the union movement.

Dutton’s observations on the woke tendencies of big business are spot on, noting that they seem more concerned about their so-called social licence than producing results for shareholders. He is an excellent choice for the times.

Peter Jacobsen, New Farm, Qld

Interesting to read new Liberal leader Peter Dutton made a pitch to the “forgotten people” in the suburbs and regions (“Dutton takes up the fight for the forgotten people”, 31/5). The Liberals’ obsession with this theme started with Menzies’ famous “Forgotten People” speech in 1942. We’ve also had Howard’s battlers and later Morrison’s quiet Australians. Who are these forgotten people? Are forgotten people and quiet Australians similar? I have a sneaking suspicion politicians prefer these people because they are not so noisy.

Marita Molloy, Middle Park, Vic

Peter Dutton is smart to forget about the woke middle and upper-class conservatives for whom it matters little economically whether it’s a Labor or Liberal government and target “the forgotten people” – aspirational Labor voters neglected by their traditional party. It worked for Trump, it can work for Dutton.

George Fishman, Vaucluse, NSW

We’re in good shape

If only the Coalition parties had got their leadership ducks in a row six or 12 months ago. And appointed Glyn Davis too. Then there might have been a closer contest. Politics 101: Timing is so very important, get it wrong, and deal with the consequences.

However, across the major parties Australia potentially now has one of its most talented and balanced leadership line-ups in decades. Add in some bipartisan approaches to the real issues facing the nation and we could be cooking with gas … or hydrogen.

Ian Hill, Mandurah, WA

Teal seats will return

The assertion that the so-called teals will hold seats won by the group for the rest of the decade is an overreach (Letters, 31/5).

There were many ingredients to the loss of seats by the major parties at the recent federal election. Some of those have been removed, policies will change and the campaign dynamics, such as rogue candidates, the United Australia Party advertising and the fantasy of fresh-faced, well-funded independents will surely change next time around, therefore changing the paradigm.

People judge politicians on what they say and do. The teals may be a one-trick pony and will have little or no real clout in a parliament in which the government has a majority. It’s one thing to grab attention with emotional arguments and seizing on popular topics but another delivering through legislation and then change. Even if the entire crossbench votes as a bloc it will not have the numbers to push through one piece of meaningful legislation. Based on that, the teals can be expected to lose seats at the next election, while the Labor and Liberal parties will reclaim ground.

Tim Sauer, Brighton East, Vic

Plundering Pacific

I wonder if the people of Solomon Islands realise the “deep-sea fishing bases” China is going to build in all probability mean huge fish-processing factory ships servicing a fishing fleet of hundreds of large boats as we saw in The Philippines recently. They will plunder the fish stocks of the Pacific at will and send it all back to China, eventually completely decimating the fish stocks as they have done elsewhere.

Apart from the refuelling of these ships, it’s anyone’s guess what the island nations’ people will actually get from these deals.

P. Edwards, Safety Bay, WA