Peter Dutton hits back at ‘heartless’ Paul Keating over ‘dark political heart’

Peter Dutton says Paul Keating’s ‘economic mismanagement’ inspired him to join the Liberals.

Paul Keating has come out swinging at Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has hit back at Paul Keating’s call for Dickson voters to “drive a political stake ... though his dark political heart” by claiming the former prime minister destroyed his father’s small business.

Mr Keating this morning unleashed on the Home Affairs Minister, telling the ABC that in his 50 years in parliament, “I’ve never seen any public figure as mean or mean-spirited as Peter Dutton.

But Mr Dutton turned Mr Keating’s own words back on him, tweeting: “Paul Keating almost destroyed my Dad’s small business with his heartless mismanagment of the economy & he inspired me to join the Liberal Party.”

Paul Keating almost destroyed my Dad’s small business with his heartless mismanagement of the economy & he inspired me to join the Liberal Party.

— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) May 14, 2019

He added: “It’s why I’m so passionate about not letting Bill Shorten repeat history & drive a stake through the hearts of small businesses around the country with his higher taxes.”

Paul Keating almost destroyed my Dad’s small business with his heartless mismanagement of the economy & he inspired me to join the Liberal Party.

— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) May 14, 2019

Earlier, urging voters in Mr Dutton’s seat of Dickson to dump him, Mr Keating had said: “At this election, those electors in Dickson have a chance to drive a political stake through his dark political heart.

“The meanness which informs his view of the world and the country means that with this big apparatus (of Home Affairs) at his hand, you wouldn’t know where his priorities are.”

Mr Keating also rowed back from last week’s attack on Australia’s national security agencies, when he said “the nutters are in charge” and had gone “berko” in their approach to Beijing.

Mr Keating today told the ABC that when he described security chiefs as “nutters” at the Labor Party campaign launch he was “speaking in code” and that “dormitory chit chat” picked up by spies was too influential in informing foreign policy.

“I was sort of speaking in code to the foreign policy and security establishment. Of course, we need a national security apparatus,” he told ABC radio this morning.

“What in shorthand I was suggesting (was) that the importance of the security agencies and intelligence should not be the currency of Australia’s foreign policy settings.

“The foreign policy of Australia should be made in relation to the tectonic plates of power in the world.

“That’s what we should be making the foreign policy, and not university dormitory chit chat which the intelligence agencies pick up in their signals intelligence and then that goes into the cabinet room informing the foreign policy.”

Bill Shorten distanced himself last week from Mr Keating’s comments on security services after the former prime minister was attacked by Scott Morrison.

“I don’t share those concerns. Paul Keating is an elder statesman of Australian politics, he’s never been shy of saying what he thinks,” the Labor leader said.

Mr Keating, Labor leader from 1991 to 1996, has long argued for a more independent foreign policy and a shift towards China.