People close to Dutton have no doubt the promised Queensland policy, to give child offenders adult sentences for serious crimes, is of a piece with Dutton’s own thinking. Crime has been a topic he has returned to frequently since he was first elected in 2001, following his time in the Queensland police force. As a theme, it suits the party he is building – one that has consciously moved away from traditional constituencies such as the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group.
The state election in October will likely be a precursor to the federal poll and give a sense of the kind of campaign Dutton will run. One point that is central to Dutton’s politics is also often forgotten: he is from Queensland. The federal party he leads is now much closer to the state branch from which he came.
“When people think of the federal Coalition, they tend to think of only the Liberal Party and the National Party, forgetting that there is a third party, the Queensland Liberal National Party,” says one senior Liberal adviser.
“And because the LNP has been so successful, federally, for so long, we have seen the political culture inside the Coalition shift with it, and that has seen us take policy positions, like with supermarket divestment or the plan for the Commonwealth to intervene in the energy market on nuclear power, that the party would not have adopted in the past.”
In general, the same adviser adds, a more Queensland approach to politics meant a more pragmatic approach that was more responsive to the needs of small business as opposed to big business.
“It’s that Queensland dimension that makes it difficult for the government to get the right line and length on Peter,” the adviser says, “because they have never dealt with a leader who is not from either Melbourne or Sydney.”
The announcement earlier this month that a federal Coalition government would introduce sector-specific divestiture powers as a last resort to manage supermarket behaviour and address supermarket price-gouging is a prime example, the adviser says, tracing the origins of the policy back to the Voice to Parliament.
“The government’s main focus is governing, obviously, and as they’re a government in their first term the focus is very much on being a good government, so on an issue like curbing the market power of supermarkets, introducing laws that would force companies like Coles and Woolies to divest parts of their business, is not really an option for them – they have to oppose it,” the adviser says.
“But Peter is in opposition so he can afford to be a little more adventurous, and Peter is a Queenslander so he doesn’t care if this upsets the Business Council of Australia – in fact, the more it upsets them, the better for us, because it signals the fact that we’re out there fighting for people who are really struggling at the moment.
“It was the debate surrounding the Voice referendum, which was so strongly backed by corporate Australia, that gave Peter the confidence to believe that he can be on the wrong side of an argument to some of the Liberal Party’s biggest, most traditional supporters and come out of it not only unscathed but winning the argument.”
Dutton, who is presently in Washington for sideline meetings at NATO, used his speech last weekend to make clear the themes that will frame the election: his promise to crack down on crime, to slow immigration, to break up supermarkets and to deliver a cheaper energy future powered by nuclear.
Stressing his closeness to the federal Nationals leader and fellow Queenslander David Littleproud – or DLP, as “Dutto” most often calls him – the opposition leader also zeroed in on a key issue that will dominate the 105 days remaining until the Queensland state election on October 26: youth crime.
The focus is straight out of the Dutton playbook.
In February he pledged to make it a crime for young people to boast about illegal activities on social media. He also vowed to keep the age of criminal responsibility at 10 years, against the recommendations of various experts, saying that children knew when they were committing serious offences.
“Adult crime for adult time is one of the things that Peter Dutton himself has foreshadowed that he is going to do,” Queensland Council for Civil Liberties vice president Terry O’Gorman tells The Saturday Paper. “One of the enduring things about Peter Dutton is that he cannot let go of his police officer past.”
Even though juvenile crime is purely a state issue, Dutton has made it clear he wants to insert himself into the debate. According to O’Gorman, this represents “a new role for a prime minister in this country”.
“With relation to Queensland’s juvenile justice crime problem, apart from the notoriety of Alice Springs, which perhaps has its own dynamics, it’s clear that the same problems exist in other major metropolitan centres in other parts of the country,” O’Gorman says.
“So what Queensland does, has some potential significance for other parts of Australia, and though it is unlikely that Labor state governments around the country will replicate what Queensland does, if Peter Dutton becomes prime minister, he will clearly attempt to move nationally the proposed Crisafulli scheme.”
Former Queensland Liberal senator Santo Santoro, who has observed Dutton closely for the past 25 years, believes it’s not just Dutton’s political pragmatism that is helping him.
“Peter is, without a doubt, the best conviction politician that I have seen since John Howard,” Santoro tells The Saturday Paper. “He actually believes in what he says and what he does.
“Being a conviction politician breeds respect, attracts respect, even from people who may not agree with your convictions, because they know that you are in there because you believe in something rather than because you simply want to exercise political power.
“The other thing that he does better than most people in politics is that he actually consults. He is genuine about getting to understand people’s views, the views of the people around him, and then coming to a position which, if it doesn’t accommodate everyone’s point of view, he makes people who have been left out feel like they had a fair go.”
Dutton’s other key strength, according to Santoro, is his ability to keep in touch with people in-between critical periods.
“He’s not just talking with people when he needs to talk with them. He just keeps in contact with people on a very regular and random basis. He actually goes out of his way to consult with people within the party membership, and also with a lot of community-based people as opposed to just those who are politically connected.”
Whatever the merits of Dutton’s political strategy and tactics, it has puzzled long-time observers of the conservative side of politics.
“I don’t know what the Liberal Party’s core beliefs are now,” says Judith Brett, emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University.
“This is bizarre to me, and one of the things I don’t understand is why the traditional Liberal Party people that are still there are letting him get away with it, people like Simon Birmingham and Jane Hume. Why have they put party unity above the national interest? Because the party is there to serve the national interest. They must be completely powerless inside the party, because it just seems to me to be a symptom of the weakness of a sensible centre in the Liberal Party at the moment.”
Brett is also unsure whether Dutton’s staunch opposition to the Albanese government’s policy agenda is ultimately in the national interest.
“I think the main problem with him, from my point of view, is his negativity,” says Brett. “Thinking back to the reform period of the 1980s, John Howard was not opposing everything that Labor did because he was trying to act in the national interest.”
While Dutton’s political agility and policy flexibility may make him a difficult political opponent, Brett argues the flipside of that is that it’s unclear what his political principles are.
“It’s obviously not traditional Liberal Party principles anymore, like government not competing with the private sector,” Brett says. “And because of that, it’s very hard to know what is really driving him, because it appears to be just the perception of electoral advantage that is motivating him, and I can’t see how that ties in with traditional Liberal Party thinking and what the Liberal Party actually stands for now.”
Sussan Ley, who is acting opposition leader while both Dutton and Littleproud are overseas, tells The Saturday Paper that under Dutton’s leadership the Coalition is united and focused on what matters to average Australians.
“Peter’s strong leadership is a clear contrast with Anthony Albanese, who seems to like being in the job more than doing the job,” Ley says. “Honestly, I don’t think being prime minister is what he thought it would be. You spend a lot more time facing the music than going to Taylor Swift concerts and I think that has got him in a bit of a slump – Anthony really does not like negative feedback.”
Ley says Dutton understands that being Liberal leader means making hard calls – even if it means copping a bit of criticism from corporates or activists.
She argues Albanese struggles to make hard decisions, using the defection of Western Australian Senator Fatima Payman as an example.
“It feels like they haven’t really made the transition from opposition to government,” Ley says. “Australians are feeling the consequences of two years of Labor making it harder to get ahead. The Coalition has a plan to get Australia back on track and Peter’s leadership has been the foundation of that.”
People close to the prime minister say Labor is not worried about Dutton at this point.
As one party insider said, pointing to the latest Newspoll, which showed the government hanging on to a slim but enduring two-party preferred lead of 51 per cent to 49 per cent: “It’s worth remembering that there’s never been an incumbent who was ahead in Newspoll with one year to go who has gone on to lose.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
July 13, 2024 as “‘A little more adventurous’: Inside Dutton’s youth crime strategy”.
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