Chalmers calls Dutton most divisive Australian leader in modern history

Economic dislocation and inequality are driving violence around the world, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned while launching into a stinging personal attack on Liberal leader Peter Dutton, accusing him of a “pathological” desire to divide Australians.

In a speech to mark the anniversary of John Curtin’s 1943 federal election victory, Chalmers labelled Dutton the most divisive leader in Australia’s modern political history at a time when communities needed leadership from their elected representatives to help deal with major economic challenges.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says recent violent protests across the world are being driven by economic dislocation.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

But Dutton earlier on Monday accused the Albanese administration of being a “bad government” that had made the country less safe.

Violent protests across the globe, including most recently in Britain, have heightened concerns by political leaders and security officials that a combination of racial issues and deteriorating economic outcomes for a growing number of people is undermining social cohesion.

Chalmers, speaking in Melbourne, said growing global unrest was evidence of the economic challenges threatening to overwhelm governments and political leaders.

“The violence we’ve seen around the world has become the most extreme consequence of economic dislocation,” he said.

“It’s part of a bigger and longer story of fragmentation. A politics of emphasising – and exploiting – differences between ‘us’, versus ‘them’. Not a clash of policy alternatives.”

The opposition used the last two weeks of parliamentary sittings to target the government’s handling of visas for people fleeing Gaza, prompting attacks from Chalmers that the Coalition was engaging in racist dog-whistling while ignoring cost-of-living issues.

The Coalition argued that the government had sought a quick political fix by issuing visitor visas that did not require the same security checks as specialist humanitarian visas.

The Albanese government has faced a string of economic challenges since coming to office.

Inflation peaked at 7.8 per cent in late 2022 and remains high at 3.8 per cent with the Reserve Bank not expecting it to fall back to its own 2-3 per cent target until 2026.

Economic growth has slowed to just above recession-like levels while real wages have fallen almost 9 per cent since mid-2020. GDP per person has gone backwards for four consecutive quarters, the worst performance since the 1990-91 recession.

Chalmers said the government was focused on ensuring people, businesses and communities were able to deal with the economic fallout.

But in a sign of the way Labor will target the Coalition at the next federal election, Chalmers accused Dutton of engaging in a form of political leadership that was destructive and divisive, focused on amplifying divisions across society rather than healing them.

“He is the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia’s modern history – and not by accident, by choice. At a time when most sane people see political divisiveness around the world and want to reject it, he wants to embrace it,” Chalmers said.

“He divides deliberately, almost pathologically. This is worse than disappointing, it is dangerous. His divisiveness should be disqualifying.

Peter Dutton has accused the Albanese administration of being a “bad government” that has made the country less safe.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“If anything, Dutton wants higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher unemployment, lower wages and less help.”

Admitting the government, which faces an election by May, was on a “sticky wicket”, Chalmers said Labor was governing from the “middle and mainstream” with a focus on “compassion, foresight and vision”.

But Dutton, campaigning in the Brisbane seat of Ryan, which the Coalition lost to the Greens at the 2022 election, said the defeat of the Northern Territory Labor government at the weekend showed voters wanted action over their concerns.

“What we do know is where a government doesn’t listen to the public, and they’re making decisions which make it harder for families to pay their bills, to pay their mortgage, and to make decisions where there is more crime in the community, less penalty for the crime – those governments will be punished,” he said.

“The Albanese government has made our country less safe, and they’ve forced up the price of everything to a point where families really are doing it very, very tough at the moment.

“The Albanese government is a bad government. Australians know after two years, they’re worse off under this government, and they know that they can’t afford another three years of the Albanese government.”

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