‘Families must be off-limits’: Jacinta Allan slams Labor’s Dutton attack
Labor Premier Jacinta Allan joins federal Labor and Liberal MPs in blasting Victorian ALP’s own goal attack on Peter and Kirilly Dutton.
Premier Jacinta Allan has joined federal Labor and Liberal politicians to condemn a Victorian ALP social media post attacking Peter Dutton’s wife as party chiefs privately admit to an error of judgment ahead of next year’s election.
Just one day after declining to criticise her own party’s social media attack on the Dutton family and describing it as a matter for ALP head office, Victoria’s Labor leader has now joined the wave of bipartisan criticism directed at the “grubby” and “gutter” political attack.
“The post has been removed, that’s appropriate. Families must be off-limits,” Ms Allan said in a statement to The Australian.
The Premier’s about-face followed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s dramatic intervention on Monday night to demand Victorian Labor pull the social media post down.
In an unlikely unity ticket on Tuesday, Albanese cabinet minister Jason Clare joined Liberal criticism over Victorian Labor’s social media attack, describing it as “stupid” and “wrong”.
“I’m glad it’s been taken down. A family should be off-limits. We’re on the ballot paper, not our partners,” Mr Clare, the federal education minister, said on Tuesday.
“And that’s why when the Prime Minister saw it, he demanded that it be ripped down. And I’m glad it has.”
With the ALP facing plunging support in Victoria ahead of next year’s federal election, Victorian Labor launched the social media attack that used a five-year-old newspaper report on Peter and Kirilly Dutton to attack them.
The Labor meme carried the heading “We all know that one couple” and a secondary line stating “Justifying dating your new partner to your friends who don’t like him” above a 2019 newspaper photo quoting Ms Dutton saying of her husband: ‘‘He is not a monster.’’ The original Queensland-based Sunday Mail newspaper front page was headlined “My Pete’s no monster’’.
The Australian understands party chiefs were privately admitting on Tuesday the social media post published on Facebook and other platforms about 11am on Monday was an own goal and were conceding the party needed to learn serious lessons from the episode.
Labor state secretary Steve Staikos initially defended the post on Monday, saying it was “not a personal attack at all” and was “supposed to be a comedic meme”. But Victorian Labor pulled the post down on Monday evening after Mr Albanese intervened with his office saying “families should be off-limits”.
Senior Victorian Liberal shadow ministers Dan Tehan and Sarah Henderson launched strong attacks on the Victorian ALP over the now scrubbed post.
“Labor started the term talking about creating a better politics and a more family-friendly parliament and now they are resorting to this. We had a minister for the republic who disappeared without trace and it seems they have been replaced by a minister for grubby politics,” Mr Tehan, the shadow immigration minister, told The Australian.
“Labor always has its priorities wrong. You would think they would be focused on the Australian people, not the leader of the Opposition as we enter the New Year. It just shows they have no plan for our country and have run out of ideas to fix it.”
Senator Henderson, the shadow education minister, slammed Labor’s social media post.
“This was a disgusting smear against Peter Dutton and his family which shows Labor has given up governing with no solutions to the cost-of-living crisis Victorians are suffering,” she told The Australian.
“After destroying the Victorian economy, we can expect to see more gutter politics from Labor in the lead up to the election which will confirm it has nothing to offer except incompetence, fear and division.”
The Prime Minister’s intervention came after Mr Dutton called on Mr Albanese and Labor to show his family respect and avoid an election campaign dominated by personal attacks.
The Opposition Leader vowed that his campaign would be clean and would not target family members such as the Prime Minister’s fiancee, Jodie Haydon.
“I can assure you: the Liberal Party I lead will not be targeting Jodie Haydon,” he said in a statement. “I respect and like Jodie but she is not an elected official and will not be the subject of humiliation, attack ads or public smear by the Liberal Party.
“I would ask the PM to equally respect my wife.”
Newspoll, compiled for The Australian, has revealed the federal Coalition for the first time has drawn level with Labor in Victoria, where Labor has lost ground heavily in polling, with the federal two-party-preferred support now split 50-50.
The three-month total represents an almost 5 per cent swing against the Albanese government since the 2022 federal election result.
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