Butcher Terry Orreal implored Dutton to give Turnbull the chop

Butcher Terry Orreal served it up straight to the man who could be the next PM: “I told him, you’ve got to do something about Turnbull.”

Butcher Terry Orreal is a sounding board for the member for Dickson, Peter Dutton, at his butcher shop in Brendale, Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Terry Orreal likes to think he does more for Peter Dutton than sell him his favourite cut of beef. For the past 17 years, the Brendale butcher has been Mr Dutton’s touchstone, telling him how it was out there for local businesses and families, where he was going wrong, what he could be doing better.

A few weeks ago, Mr Orreal served it up straight to the man who looks likely to be Australia’s next prime minister: “I told him, Peter, you’ve got to do something about Turnbull.”

As the Liberal leadership drama continued to unfold yesterday in parliament, with Mr Dutton working the numbers from the backbench while the Prime Minister maintained that it was business as usual, when assuredly it was not, Mr Orreal reflected on the Peter Dutton he knew and why his elevation would make a difference to that “circus in Canberra”.

They have been friends since Mr Dutton first ran for the north Brisbane seat of Dickson in 2001 and Mr Orreal joined his campaign team to take on Labor heavyhitter Cheryl Kernot, one of many hurdles the MP would overcome to climb the ministerial ladder and lunge for the top job.

They speak regularly, sometimes when Mr Dutton pops in to the shop to pick up an order of 5cm-thick cattleman’s cutlets, more often on the phone given how busy he was as home affairs minister. “Peter will be a damn good leader if he gets the chance because he stands up for what he believes in and he listens to people,” the 72-year-old butcher said. “He certainly listens to me.”

It’s no mere lip service from a politician on the make. When Mr Orreal complained to Mr Dutton that the shop’s electricity bill had hit $1000 a week, he asked for a copy of the statement and tabled it in federal parliament. Since challenging Mr Turnbull, he has cited Mr Orreal’s power costs in arguing for urgent action to ease the burden on consumers.

But yesterday, Treasurer Scott Morrison took aim at Mr Dutton’s first big policy pitch to cut GST from household power bills as an “absolute budget blower” which would cost $7.5 billion over the next four years. The PM also weighed in, warning the states would have to be reimbursed.

Mr Dutton evidently took careful note of Mr Orreal’s recent career advice, which reflected what he was being told by Coalition MPs worried about the drift of the government under Mr Turnbull, especially in Queensland.

Mr Orreal said his friend had responded cautiously to the proposition that the Prime Minister had to go. “He knew that. But he said people wouldn’t like a change of leader so close to an election,” he recalled. “And I said, ‘Peter, what’s the difference if you are going to lose … that’s what will happen unless something is done about Turnbull’.”

One of the things he frequently raised with Mr Dutton was how politicians of all ilks had got the job description wrong. MPs were elected to do what the voters wanted them to do, not what they thought should be done. “They are supposed to represent what the people want, whether they agree with that or not,” Mr Orreal said. “Peter seems to understand it. He sticks up for what we want him to do.

“When they were wasting all that time on same-sex marriage last year, I told him that the people here don’t give a bugger about that when there are pensioners who can’t afford to turn on the bloody airconditioner.”

Mr Orreal’s cousin Mark, a retired regimental sergeant-major in the army, has dealt with Mr Dutton extensively to create an Avenue of Honour in memory of the 20 servicemen from Samford killed in the world wars and Korea. Mr Dutton and his family live on acreage near the scenic hamlet.

Last Saturday, Mr Dutton attended a Vietnam Veterans’ Day service there, and then dropped in to local RSL clubs. “I’m sure there were a lot of other things on his mind at the time but he still spent a good hour with us,” an impressed Mark Orreal said.