It’s easy to tell that Peter Dutton is a former cop. He never stands with his back to a doorway. Never apologises. Never admits culpability. Never (publicly) breaks ranks. Never gives an inch away with his face. The only sincere smile you’ll ever see appear on his face is the kind of terrifying, wolf-like grin that, across all cultures and all languages, means ‘You’re fucked now, mate.’ He is a terrifying figure. Nearly all our politicians have to try and effect warmth and gregariousness to mask being calculating, emotionless blank slates. Dutton gives the impression of having to try and effect being a calculating, emotionless blank slate to mask being a vicious bastard.
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Dutton’s portfolio now seems to consist solely of whipping up racially-charged panic about gang crime in Victoria and overseeing the lethally inhumane indefinite detention Australia is carrying out in offshore facilities – and he seems genuinely thrilled to be doing it. While huge swathes of the Australian political class are complicit in the systematic mistreatment and denigration of minorities in this country, Dutton seems to visibly revel in it more than any other politician. In any given interview, he looks like he’s only seconds away from falling back on his police muscle memory by punching the questioner and filing a report saying that they had an ‘accident’.
In short: that motherfucker scares the piss out of me, and the prospect of that human knuckle becoming prime minister makes me feel physically ill. That, unfortunately, is the talk of the town at the moment. (The ‘town’, of course, being the horribly disturbed individuals that deliberately click on the ‘auspol’ hashtag on Twitter.)
The heady ambrosia of another leadership spill is in the air and, while Tony Abbott is probably still grinning like a thirsty lizard and licking his lips while he stares at Parliament House through a comically large telescope, the talk this time is that Peter Dutton will be the one to ascend to the curséd throne of the Liberal Party.
Obviously, recent history has shown that we’re never particularly far away from a quick leadership change in this country, but the catalyst for this specific ~uncertainty~ all stems from the National Energy Guarantee. Turnbull has made to make significant compromises to the NEG – including removing any requirements for legislating emissions targets – in order to get the numbers necessary to pass it in parliament. Speaking in Question Time, Turnbull said that, with their slim majority, they had no choice:
We have a majority of one in this house, we need to have all almost all of our party room to support legislation for the government to carry it on its own numbers with respect to this matter. We are not in a position at this stage.
9 News reported last week that senior party figures were blaming the disquiet on the “usual suspects“, with “a number of senior sources” specifically singling out Abbott. Surprise, surprise. Around the same time, the Daily Telegraph was reporting that “conservative MPs” were urging Dutton to make a bid for the leadership and described Dutton as “torn“. This morning, 9 News reported that they had “confirmed” that Dutton had told colleagues that he was considering challenging the leadership, but was waiting to see how the revised NEG looked.
Frankly, it’s hard to see how to assess the likelihood of any of this. Any reports on a spill have come from leaks, and those leaks are disseminated purposefully to elicit a response. This could be from the conservative faction just hoping to bully Turnbull into submission on the NEG. It could be someone trying to induce a spill by pretending it’s already happening. Who the fuck knows.
All I know is, I really, really do not like the sound of ‘Prime Minister Peter Dutton’. Fingers crossed he gets Section 44’d first.
UPDATE: Sky News host David Speers has reported that the Liberal Party has declared a leadership vacancy, the spill is on.
David Speers reporting the Liberal leadership has been declared vacant. It’s on!!!!!!
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) August 20, 2018
