People pan Peter but he speaks the language of the battlers

The former policeman has been brawling over policy and power since entering parliament.

Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

Peter Dutton is used to a political fight.

The former policeman, who snatched his seat off then Labor frontbencher Cheryl Kernot as an unknown in 2001, has been brawling over policy and power since entering parliament. And despite the public declarations yesterday of support for Malcolm Turnbull, Queensland’s Liberal National Party is behind the scenes fanning a leadership challenge.

The LNP machine, much of its membership and many of its federal parliamentarians — in the great tradition of self-preservation — want a change to Dutton.

The Queensland MP has shown he can hold a marginal seat, and many believe he can sharpen that winning edge across the battleground state where 21 of the 30 federal seats are held by the LNP. Eight are on margins of 4 per cent or less, and have been seesawing between both sides of politics for a decade — the exception being Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, on Brisbane’s northern outskirts, which he has won in six tight elections.

Dutton might be the galvanising target of hatred for social ­progressives over his uncompromising, unapologetic rhetoric — whether it be on health, crime or immigration — but, according to LNP insiders, it is the language many Queenslanders understand.

One senior LNP insider told The Australian the father of three may be the “only hope of holding onto power’’.

“Peter is able to take complex policy issues and talk about them in everyday language that Australians understand,’’ he said. “It was the same thing with John Howard, with Barnaby Joyce and people like Matt Canavan.

“Turnbull just can’t cut through, and he talks about things that don’t mean much to the average person, who is worried about their jobs, rising costs, and live in these marginal electorates.’’

It was Turnbull’s mantra about the country needing to be agile and turning to innovation during the 2016 campaign that produced a schism ­between the LNP organisation and the Prime Minister.

In the last two weeks of that 2016 campaign, the LNP “went rogue’’ and ignored campaign headquarters.

But since the narrow victory, the Turnbull government’s popularity has plummeted in Queensland. Over April and June, Newspoll showed support in the primary vote for the Turnbull government had sunk from 43.2 per cent at the 2016 election to 36 per cent; the lowest level in any state.

If Dutton challenges and wins, he will become the first conservative prime minister from Queensland since Arthur Fadden’s short-lived tenure in late 1941.

The 17-year veteran, who completed a business degree after leaving the police force in 1999, was last night staring down new claims that were already muddying the waters of his mooted challenge ­before it began.

Constitutional law expert Anne Twomey reportedly suggested Dutton’s ongoing interests in two Brisbane childcare centres that receive commonwealth subsidies could make him ineligible to serve in parliament.

Dutton became involved in ­developing childcare centres with his father, a builder, before entering politics.

But Dutton’s office last night said he had legal advice that he was not in breach of the Constitution.