Peter Dutton tough cop on the beat for new Home Affairs

Peter Dutton’s promotion to Home Affairs could see him reprising his role as a law enforcer.

The new Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton in Parliament House. Picture: Gary Ramage

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s promotion to the new super-portfolio of Home Affairs could see the government’s leading conservative reprising a familiar role to one he played 20 years ago as a Queensland police detective — ­albeit on a grander scale.

West Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, a former member of the SAS, yesterday told The Australian that Mr Dutton had a “great background” for his new job because of his previous ­experience in law enforcement.

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Peter Dutton in uniform. Picture: Supplied

“His previous vocation was a policeman. He understands the risks that our nation faces,” Mr Hastie said. “A lot of the organisations he will be leading in his new ministry are already synchronised at the operational level and it makes sense to bring them together under the one portfolio.”

The promotion of Mr Dutton — known for his hard-nosed style — has also filled those on the progressive side of politics with a sense of apprehension, as revealed by former Greens senator Robert Simms, who told Sky News this week that elevating Mr Dutton to the new superministry was like putting “Count Dracula in charge of the blood bank”.

Mr Dutton entered parliament at the 2001 election representing the seat of Dickson in Queensland, in the suburbs to the north and west of Brisbane — an area in which his great-grandparents worked as dairy farmers in the 1860s. While at high school, Mr Dutton worked in a butcher’s shop, held down a lawnmowing job and worked as a paperboy before joining the police, where he worked from 1990-99 and served as a detective senior constable.

Mr Dutton, who also holds a business degree, later said that working with the police allowed him to see “the best and the worst that society has to offer”. During his nine years, he served in the drug squad, sex offenders squad, covert and surveillance squad and the National Crime Authority.

In his maiden speech to parliament, Mr Dutton said his time on the police force allowed him to experience the “wonderful, kind nature of people willing to offer any assistance to those in their worst hour” while also witnessing the “sickening behaviour displayed by people who, frankly, barely justify their existence in our sometimes over-tolerant society”.

Promoted in the final term of the Howard government to the junior ministry, he was tapped when Kevin Rudd won power to serve as the opposition spokesman for finance, competition and de­regulation. After the Coalition won government in 2013, he endured a rocky stint as health minister before shifting to immigration in December 2014.

He has since masterminded changes to Australia’s 457 visa regime and the overhaul of Australia’s citizenship laws.