Dutton’s power networks: Mix of mates ‘the real Peter’ keeps close
The Opposition Leader has begun the task of winning back the voters who abandoned the party | Dutton’s circle of influence
Forget what you may think you know about Peter Dutton, say his friends. The Liberal leader is not what he may appear.
Dutton, a hard-line political conservative on issues such as defence and national security, finds time in his personal life to meditate and indulge in organic farming at his property on the outskirts of Brisbane.
He counts transport magnate Lindsay Fox as a close mate, regularly consults John Howard and when not in Canberra spends time with his family and a bunch of old school mates – a plumber, a few IT guys and a car fleet manager – having beers around the barbecue. “Peter is surprising. Labor underestimates him at their peril,” a source close to the Opposition Leader says.
“There’s this hard guy image, but he’s an incredibly warm and engaging bloke. I think that will become evident over time.
“He’s not dogmatic or implacable on issues – he usually crafts pragmatic solutions to problematic issues. And he’s got a deep sense of service and decency and that will shine through.”
It is the complexity of the 51-year-old, punctuated by the diverse group of people he surrounds himself with, that suggests his mission is equally less black and white.
A colleague describes it not as a binary choice between steering the Coalition further to the Right to re-engage the “base” or appeasing the moderate wing to wrest back seats from the teal independents, but rather expressing fundamental Liberal Party values. “Look back to the 2007-08 era when we went into opposition – it was chaos,” a party source and supporter of Dutton says.
“Sure, things are tough in opposition, but he’s kept the party together in a way that other leaders wouldn’t have been able to at this stage of the cycle. He’s got an open mind on good policy.”
As Opposition Leader, Dutton holds one of the most difficult jobs in politics. He has surrounded himself with a core group of loyal advisers, Liberal elders, business chiefs and mates as he attempts to rebuild the party and avoid the leadership curse of opposition.
The 21-year political veteran, who came within a whisker of becoming prime minister in August 2018 when Malcolm Turnbull lost the leadership, is determined to dodge the fate of Liberal and Labor opposition leaders who failed to embrace change and present election-winning policies.
In the post-Menzies era, opposition leaders such as Billy Snedden, Andrew Peacock, Kim Beazley, Brendan Nelson and Bill Shorten were either removed by colleagues or fell short in their first election campaigns.
The father of three, who has been married to Kirilly since 2003, is close to seven mates from school who regularly catch up for tennis and golf and “talk about anything other than politics”.
“Peter’s well-grounded. He’s got a great group of old school mates who catch up regularly. He’s as at ease with them as he is with his parliamentary colleagues in the parliament, just as he is in the corporate boardrooms or family barbecues,” a source close to Dutton says.
“His old network includes a plumber, a few IT guys, a car fleet manager – just genuine hardworking small business people. That helps him to understand what small business people and families encounter on a day-to-day basis, as the engine room of the economy and as local employers.”
A friend and colleague told The Australian that Dutton was “very diverse with the people he speaks to … a lot of people you wouldn’t think he talks to or is friends with”.
“He doesn’t isolate himself from the Left or the Right. And he has acquaintances that many people never would have heard or thought of,” the friend says.
Dutton and former AFL star Luke Darcy have become great mates over the years through mutual friends. It was Darcy who got Dutton into meditation.
He spends the weekend with his boys on their Brisbane property where they raise cattle and work an organic farm.
“Any opportunity they have, they get out there,” the friend says.
While some in Coalition ranks, including supporters of Dutton, believe they will languish in opposition for at least two terms, the Opposition Leader is focused on victory at the 2025 election.
Dutton is seeking counsel from a broad mix of people as he bids to win back disillusioned conservative, suburban and city voters who abandoned Scott Morrison on May 21.
Howard, who promoted Dutton into the ministry as a 34-year-old second-term MP, former federal Liberal Party director Brian Loughnane and Tony Abbott, who appointed him health and sport minister following the 2013 election, are confidants of the Liberal leader.
Dutton also retains close relationships with former Liberal ministers Steven Ciobo, Michael Keenan and Jamie Briggs – fellow members of the “rat pack” who arrived in Canberra in the 2000s.
The Liberal leader, who has known the trio for decades, is understood to value their opinions and political judgment.
Across the private sector, Dutton has built up a network of corporate contacts during his tenures as health, immigration, home affairs and defence minister.
They include Fox, former Telstra chief executive Andy Penn, Hancock Prospecting, Roy Hill and S. Kidman and Co executive chair Gina Rinehart, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, Saab Australia managing director Andy Keough and PwC Australia chief executive Tom Seymour.
The Australian last week revealed that Anthony Albanese counts Fox, Joyce and Seymour as close private sector contacts – members of a wider business network he is enlisting to help drive Labor’s economic and social agenda.
Asia Natural Gas & Energy Association chief executive Paul Everingham, the longtime former Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia boss, is another Dutton confidant. He also has relationships with Sky News Australia host Paul Murray, who he regards as having a good read on the Liberal Party base, and 2GB radio presenter Ray Hadley.
The Dickson MP has adopted the Morrison leadership group model, which meets on the Monday of parliamentary weeks to discuss political tactics.
The group includes the Nationals, Liberal and Senate leadership teams, David Littleproud, Perin Davey, Sussan Ley, Simon Birmingham and Michaelia Cash, opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor, manager of opposition business Paul Fletcher, opposition education spokesman Alan Tudge and federal Liberal Party director Andrew Hirst.
Dutton speaks most frequently with Ley, Birmingham, Taylor and Cash, as well as key MPs and marginal seat holders, including Andrew Hastie, Luke Howarth, Phil Thompson, Michael Sukkar, James Paterson, Marise Payne and Jason Wood. He seeks out marginal seat MPs to get their reads on the public mood.
The Opposition Leader retained senior advisers, including chief of staff Alex Dalgleish, deputy chief of staff Tom Fleming and communications director Nicole Chant, as well as key Morrison staffers, following the election loss.
“They are as loyal as the day is long,” a source close to Dutton said.
The Prime Minister and senior ALP figures aren’t underestimating Dutton’s dogged determination to reverse Coalition fortunes after Morrison lost a swath of traditionally safe seats to Labor, teal independents and the Greens.
Dutton, who toppled high-profile Labor MP Cheryl Kernot in 2001, has held on to his north Brisbane seat of Dickson, despite cashed-up ALP campaigns backed by the unions and GetUp.
“The polls won’t stay the same when we get to the election. We’ve thrown everything at him over decades and he always pulls himself on the canvas. He’s a formidable political operator,” a senior Labor figure said.
From his Queensland stronghold, where the LNP fended off Labor raids on marginal Coalition seats, the former cop has adopted a patient approach.
Despite internal and external pressure, Dutton held firm against supporting Albanese’s climate change targets and jobs summit.
While acknowledging the Coalition needs to do more on climate change and present a positive vision for Australians, Dutton is treading carefully to avoid the political bear traps that have snared opposition leaders.
A senior Liberal MP said: “We must be ready to strike when the time is right.
“We’ll use the election review to rebuild.”
By next year, households and businesses will be feeling the pinch of higher mortgage and loan repayments, energy bills and cost of living. “We need to present our alternative manifesto to voters once the dust settles,” the MP said.
In Queensland, Dutton has expanded his organisational power base inside the Liberal National Party backed by powerbrokers, including Santo Santoro.
Wielding greater power in the LNP than president Lawrence Springborg, Dutton has frozen out veteran party figures he believed were holding back the party.
With the support of Littleproud, with whom he is close, and LNP state leader David Crisafulli, Dutton is now the dominant conservative politician and prominent fundraiser in the battleground election state.
“There’s a pragmatism about him. He listens to various points of view, makes a decision, and sees it through,” a supporter says.
“We saw that in defence.
“If we waited around the maze of the defence bureaucracy, nothing would have happened.
“But instead he instilled a sense of mission readiness to them – the bureaucrats and the chiefs, that they simply hadn’t seen in recent ministers,” the supporter says. “Defence was initially very reluctant to offer so much equipment to Ukraine, but Peter got them cracking and in the end we became the biggest non-NATO contributor to Ukraine. This was led by Peter and would only have happened with Peter as minister.
“We were out of the blocks early on our seniors workforce policy, and the government ultimately adopted most aspects of it. It’s rare for an opposition to drive the agenda like that and that’s due to Peter’s political instincts.”