It was grim. It was something to behold. The twitchy, raw nerves of Peter Dutton — looking every part a gory amalgam of elation, determination and self-pity. As though the tyranny of low expectations had been superseded by the tyranny he might exceed these expectations.
Two days out from unceremoniously sinking the Voice referendum, the country’s most recent study in moral desolation had found himself stranded in a wilderness of the unknown. He was thinking about himself.
About how to crowbar the “nasty, bigoted outfit” that passes for the opposition into permanent relevance now that the referendum was over. How to pretend to make good on the line he is a “conviction politician”, as those dead-on moralists over at Sky had so earnestly described him, and resist being reduced to some preposterous footnote in the nation’s history.
Gloating, at this point, seemed off the cards — even for someone as low as Dutton. After all, he had just batted any prospect of Indigenous reconciliation into a raging dumpster fire. And for all the perverse pleasure he derived from the utter debasement of it all — which was immense — something broke that night. People were in shock. Many people he didn’t care about were genuinely grieving.
Appearances can be everything, as they say. So, he seized the day looking prime ministerial and grave, though not impossibly grave, and responded in the only way this spectacle in political division knew best: by bringing a censure motion against the prime minister for needlessly dividing the country over the Voice.
But it didn’t work — of course it didn’t. Though he never had the numbers, the sheer grandeur and discipline required of the moment proved too much for the shameless spiv. Through the cracks of Dutton’s very Dutton facade of sincerity oozed his usual blend of petty ruthlessness and unserious saltiness, betraying the pathetic ploy to casual observers for what it was.
“The prime minister is no light on the hill,” he hissed across the lectern. “This prime minister is a fading light, a flickering light on the hill — he is a flake!” Someone had written this speech for him, this terrible, lurching speech. “[The prime minister is] looking more and more like his mentor, Kevin Rudd. K-Rudd, A-Albanese — ‘A-Disaster’-Albanese!”
All killer lines, until they weren’t. This sad excuse for an opposition leader was painfully missing his mark, and he knew it. So now what? To hell with it, Dutton thought. He’s not some random Kafka character, maundering the point of his existence. On the contrary, he knows himself, deeply, unnervingly: every last self-serving, self-aggrandising layer.
And so on he marched, this towering vision of confected outrage and moral indignation, out to strike a different tone. What tone? An in-your-face winning tone! No more of this timorous pretending to be temperamentally fit to hold office nonsense. It’s time for a post-Voice victory lap and to act as though he has Albanese on the ropes, even if he doesn’t.
Snapping his fingers, he reneged on his promise of constitutional recognition for First Nations peoples, and in moves that surprised no-one, went on to press for an audit of spending in Indigenous programs and a royal commission into “rampant” child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities. Undergirding this “high tide of the big grotesque” was dirty Dutton’s usual penchant for mendacity: all these “practical measures”, he thundered at Albanese, were precisely “what the Australian people voted for last Saturday”.
Like so many Dutton lies before it, this one was lazy, yet incomparably so. Did he truly believe Australians would accept such a brazen lie? The answer was it didn’t matter. Dutton’s a known liar. One man’s moral no-go zone, he’s told us time again, is another’s desacralised “Pass Go and Collect $200”. Just ask Morrison. And besides, this scammer had finally hit his stride, thought he could fly, touch the sky – a sentiment the caravan of moral degenerates sitting behind him, with one or two honourable exceptions, appeared to share.
So, emboldened, Dutton didn’t stop there. In his quest to supersede Morrison as the most apt description of all that is so nakedly wrong with the Coalition today, this nouveau Nietzsche told Parliament it was also veritably true Australians had not just voted against the Voice but so too to unwinding and casting aside any and all efforts at First Nations truth-telling, treaty discussions and closing the gap.
When Minister for Health Mark Butler finally rose to say Australians had not, contrary to Dutton’s assertions, voted against closing the gap, Dutton returned to his rhetorical vagrancy and yelled, “You have divided the country!” forcing Butler in turn to calmly scold him, as though he were a small child: “We’ve got angry interjections,” he said. It was unedifying, it was crass. It was all very Dutton.
It was also very contradictory. After tying much of his campaign against the Voice to Martin Luther King Jr’s rhetoric of colour-blind, universal dignity, here was Trumpy Dutton, embracing the narrowness of identity politics for white people with all the same sanctimonious hectoring the right routinely assigns to the left. Faux civic unity — that magical promise the Voice’s defeat would herald the end of racial division forever — was yesterday’s tactic. Today’s tactics demanded that Dutton dispense with that deceit.
In this depraved new world, there couldn’t possibly be any return to the frontbench for moderate Liberal MP Julian Leeser. No, warned Dutton’s closest, Pontius Leeser must serve his time. And as for “et tu, Bridget Archer” — she of the take a principled stance and cross the floor fame — it seems she’s probably on the way out, and with her the party’s convention of voting according to conscience, if Dutton’s unhinged chat to Ray Hadley the other day is anything to go by.
After all, there’s simply no room for moderates and Burkean conservatism if disciplined outrage politics is the name of the game. On the contrary, this is a time to rage against wind farms, to shout from the rooftops for a ban on Palestinian rallies, to call for the deportation of protesters, to lie and accuse Albanese of not condemning anti-Semitism, to also accuse him of not being partisan enough on Israel, to use even more inflammatory language on the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza for pure political advantage. Never mind ASIO chief Mike Burgess’ calls to cease and desist.
This is Dutton laid bare, unstoppable, logorrheic and shameless. The country’s would-be aspiring fascist — a serial disrupter of scale, great muddler of messages, doing and saying whatever he thinks necessary to win power, groping for a win. Even if it dehumanises First Nations peoples, even if defiles the seat of democracy in the process, even if it unleashes social unrest and whatever Hannah Arendt said about the sweeping menace of cynicism. Oh well, shrugs Dutton.
But then you hear it. The chords of self-doubt, the desperation to speak reality into existence, the anxiety his moon shot date with relevance will never materialise. Albanese is a “completely different bloke”, he says, a “shadow of his former self”, he insists. He sounded beaten, as though he’d already lost his nerve. The type of person utterly distracted by Newspoll — that one space where all right-wing claims of progressive bias fall to the wayside and shattering reality looms.
So there he was, tragedy and farce all at once, the grasper, the lurcher, as though he can see it all laid out so clearly before him: the crushing election loss, the disappointment, the utter existential futility of it all. Dutton as Trump, minus the charisma. A man without a conscience, with no nagging sense of public duty, no talent for government or leadership, but plenty of scope for stinging humiliation.
The show can’t go on, but somehow it will. Until it doesn’t. Until the foundations crack and crumble, and stone becomes sand. Until this lost sock behind the dryer is forced to face the music. In the meantime, pretending to win is all that matters, a permanent state: bellum omnium contra omnes.
How I truly feel about Peter Dutton is most likely unprintable.
What I’d like to speculate about him though is that in Dutton we have a man full of low cunning with a refined radar for opportunism, while at the same time being a man of limited wit and low intelligence. For a short while after Dutton became opposition leader I was actually quite pleased because I imagined that he would singlehandedly keep the coalition out of power as long as he was. And he will, of that I’m still sure. But despite that prospect, there’s a limit.
This man is a grub. He’s an outright liar, a renowned dog-whistler to elements within society we’d normally cross the street to avoid, and really, if Dutton is the best that the coalition can do then the sooner he’s replaced by another failed Liberal Party clone, the better. I just hope that the next idiot to step up has at least SOME credibility, because Dutton has none.
Never mind the credibility; I’d much prefer at least a mere glimmer of decency.
Indeed. That also.
Alas, your hopes will be dashed….again.
I have similarly changed my mind since the voice debacle. He is too actively destructive and poisonous to the environment to be tolerated. As a start, his every malevolent utterance need to stop being reported, the Guardian is terrible on this, and the abc.
Also, please stop leading with his picture, I’m trying to eat my lunch here.
But otherwise, a great article.
Dont forget “let me make it very clear ” Ms Cash, the whole team lacks creditibility
Yes Lawson, our ABC has been so intimidated by the last lot of LNP wankers that they’re too scared to see who’s at the helm again.
Step up to the podium again ABC. We can’t have Pox telling us about àll the doom and gloom of another LNP term.
One should always remember that his fellow members of parliament previously decided that he was not leadership material when morrison got the top job instead of him. Must be galling for him to think that fellow liberals thought morrison was better than him, and we all now know how that ended. So, to be initially considered worse than morrison is some great feat and now with the ongoing exposure of his failures in previous portfolios, health, immigration, home affairs and defense and one not having noticed any change in his demeaner “he can go”, as someone once said in the parliament about a very professional person, that’s right it was the person who his fellow liberals obviously thought was much better than him. If he is the best in the liberal team then he is best kept where he is by the Australian people or totally removed by the people of Dixon at the next election, the % margin he holds the seat is miniscule and it wouldn’t take much to remove him, BUT with the biased help of merde-ock he may well survive. His history in the QLD police force with people different to him and the comments of coloured people in other cities whilst in parliament certainly disqualifies him from any further position of authority, he is not even suited to be a decent backbencher in parliament. Just another stain in the Australian parliament, along with, alleged war criminal howard, feckless abbott and the continuing in parliament of that nugatory reprobate morrison. This statement is about that liberal party & dutton, one could write similar comments about that other party & some of the seat warmers there, that props up the coalition of corruption.
Your description would suit John Howard to a T. Dutton’s just the Howard model taken up to 11
Gee – what have grubs done to being compared to this evil dull witted evil bottom feeder…
This article on the pathetic Dutton by Maeve McGregor is almost breathtaking in its complete and utter demolition of the farce that is the man-child. Rarely does one experience the joy of such wonderfully articulated language. Thank you MMcG.
Well said!
Although I might add that it is breathtaking.
Hard to add anything constructive to such a brilliant piece!
In an article in Guardian Australia yesterday I read this line: “I don’t think Mr Dutton’s comments are helpful at this time,” [Trade Minister Don] Farrell told Sky News on Sunday.
And I wondered if there has ever been a time when Dutton’s comments have been helpful.
I like the way such a crashing understatement invites the obvious thoughts in response…
Can’t remember if it was Niki Savva or Katharine Murphy who wrote recently that immigration is going to be Dutton’s hammer from now until the next election. The demonstrations calling for justice for Palestinians will fit this theme like a glove. There was an article in the New Daily today about a new show on SBS hosted by Myf Warhurst about inserting a disparate group of non-white non-Anglo Australians into Maryborough (VIC) to try to give the town a lift, and one resident commented “I like other cultures, but only if they want to become Australians”, while another said “Certain nationalities cause a lot of trouble”.
That’s going to be Dutton’s target demography – the outer suburbs and the bush.
Labor will need to abide by Clinton’s “It’s the Economy, Stupid”. Because that is where Dutton will insert his immigration points – someone to blame for the cost of living, the housing shortage, traffic congestion, crime – nothing surprising there.
Somehow or other, Albanese and Labor are going to have to govern the country while trying to retain electoral support, whereas Dutton will not be distracted by policies for running the country.
It’s been the WASP playbook forever i.e. eugenics, but now masked by pseudo demographers obsessing about ZPG inspired focus on refugees, international education, migrants and ‘sustainable population’; like Howard’s borrowing of Whitlam’s ‘maintain the rage’, LNP know many ageing skip Labor voters amongst above median age can be leveraged to support proxy white Oz sentiments and policies.
In the noughties, similar helped sink/wedge Labor and/or carbon emissions pricing or ‘carbon tax’ (coined in ’90s US) when a solution to the above perceived ‘environmental hygiene issues’ of ‘other types’ was proffered to the above issues by US linked fossil fueled think tanks and nativist NGO, for reinforcement via RW MSM ie. security, restrictions and control; ditto The Voice No campaign.
Too easy, till a demographic inflection point is reached, i.e. when more diverse and/or educated are in the above median age (in regions) &/or our RW MSM actually starts informing Australians?
myopic ; 2 wrongs dont make a right ; the ageist and racist artificial categorizations are simplistic and alienate us all into disparate groups ; you do know that the so labelled “inter- generational report” on so-named “intergenerational theft”is authored by a neo lib lobby land source? Luv its the oldest trick in the book- used by dictatorships throughout history; to divide and separate this gives em sway as it removes logic and specificity and fact and it worked a treat for the vile neolib media data estate / lobbyland for mining and mineral wealth and the lobbyland servant cartel via Canberra who sort to use labels and waved logic and decency away or even a whiff of fairness and apology to indigenous ; whilst the vapid nice opportunists supposedly had “Conversations” and simply piled on lazy myopic labels on older women and older Australians trying to indicate their own superiority
Yep. And it might even win it for them.
But the catch is they’ll just aim to reduce Labor’s massive immigration intake back to the already high levels instigated by Howard and maintained by every LNP Government since.
And in reality they probably won’t even do that – just find some more asylum seekers to beat up on.
Simple for them to do in theory. Just aim to limit NOM to 100-150k in the short term and then tie it to key metrics like vacancy rates, unemployment, hospital bed ratios, etc over the long term.
But they won’t because it goes against neoliberal dogma, will make a bunch of growth-at-all-costs economic indicators “look bad”, and will especially attract the ire of industries that rely on it to sustain their profits (which is most of them).
It would be immensely popular policy though. Not like they’d have anything to fear from the majority of voters.
Australia loves immigration, and we don’t like multiculturalism.
Thank you Maeve McGregor, for your wonderful writing, and especially here about this very disturbing subject. Will Dutton’s opportunism remake the Liberals into a stupefied shadow of the US Republicans? Wreckers all. For all of us I earnestly hope for his failure.
Let’s be honest the Australian voters have a habit of supporting this crap at elections ie Howard,Abbot,Morrison and unbelievably this prick appears even worse.That’s the problem lies work and someone like Dutton with a moral vacuum could be be the next to join the Congo line of previous cretins from the LNP to ooze their way into power.
One of the lessons Dutton has absorbed from the career of D. Trump is that after a while, the lies don’t count any more. The Washington Post tallied up 30,573 “false or misleading claims” from Trump over four years. He managed an average of over 50 a day when he was in form. But his supporters didn’t care, they found Trump’s “post-truth” universe a weirdly comforting place to live in as they basted themselves in their own anger and resentment. The danger for Dutton is not they he will called out by minority media like Crikey or the Saturday Paper, which his voting base don’t read, but it is the elementary political fact that Australia has compulsory voting, so just further polarizing your own base is not necessarily going to win elections (nor do we have the anti-democratic electoral college).
Calling them “lies” is a problem if you/we want to confront them. To the believers they are “Alternative Facts”, a much clearer description. It captures perfectly today’s neo-medieval thinking: “What you say is at best inconvenient, at worst blasphemous. Therefore, I have a different set of beliefs. Understand that the more facts you marshal against me, the more errors I am shown to make, the more opponents I attract, the more it proves my faith is correct.”