Operation ‘de-creep Pete’ commences as Newspoll failures mount

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Do-Labor Malcolm is in serious political trouble. His polls are shocking, half his party hates him and his Budget is going to collapse before year end with the terms of trade very likely leading to a sovereign downgrade. That is going to stir the Loon Pond into uproar just as Newspoll takes Malcolm towards his self-imposed deadline of 30 sunk polls. Add another today to reach 13 in a row:

The Turnbull government’s bid to win back disaffected voters with a “middle ground” budget has stalled, with the Coalition trailing Labor 47-53 per cent in two-party terms after weeks of campaigning for its economic plan.

…Signalling disenchantment with both Labor and the Coalition, 28 per cent of voters continue to prefer minor parties, with 10 per cent primary vote support for the Greens, 9 per cent for One Nation and 9 per cent for others, including the Nick Xenophon Team.

Some very serious media grooming of Peter Dutton over the weekend suggests firmly that he is actively being positioned by the Loon Pond to replace Malcolm Turnbull come the moment. Normally hostile Domainfax was invited to do an intimate profile:

At 46, Dutton is bald but quite youthful-looking, with a round face and unfurrowed brow. He draws my attention to a long row of files behind his desk, each of which contains documents outlining the circumstances of an individual who hopes to remain in Australia. He explains that these are cases awaiting his consideration. Advisers read the briefs and add comments, but it is up to him to give the thumbs up or down. “Dozens and dozens a week, you’re dealing with,” he says. And the applicants’ stories are rarely straightforward. “There are vexed cases every day.”

…Dutton isn’t merely following guidelines when he grants, extends or cancels visas. “He has a lot of discretion,” says Innes Willox, chief executive of an employers’ association, Australian Industry Group, and chair of a ministerial advisory committee on skilled migration. “A lot of people’s fates are in his hands.”

…political pundits have speculated lately that Dutton could succeed Turnbull as Liberal Party leader. He is the most senior member of the House of Representatives in the Liberal-National Coalition Government’s hard-right faction. He is also one of the most influential members of Turnbull’s cabinet. As Dutton himself points out, personal pizazz isn’t a prerequisite for the highest office. “People never spoke about John Howard’s charisma,” he says of Australia’s second-longest-serving PM. History tells Dutton that leaders don’t even need to be liked: “At many times during John Howard’s career, he was deeply unpopular.

Dutton and his supporters are aware that he, too, is heartily loathed by a portion of the population. “This cold automaton who is non-caring and never sheds a tear – that’s the image that he has,” says Willox, arguing that the characterisation is unfair: “He’s a much deeper person than that public front.”

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Deary. There is a difference between being a boring, accounting type lacking charisma and being an openly creepy guy with a track record of kicking the most vulnerable folks in society. But then, that appears to be what the article was all about, de-creeping Pete:

Respect is all a leader really needs, it seems to him. “If you’re prepared to fight for what you believe in, then people see you as a strong character.” And Dutton is nothing if not combative. He may have fewer facial expressions than most of his colleagues on the Coalition front bench, but at Question Time – the rowdy contest between the Government and the Labor Opposition each afternoon of the parliamentary sitting season – no one hurls an insult across the chamber with more conviction. “You become a warrior, in a sense,” he says.

Well-liked by fellow conservatives, Dutton has few friendships that span the political divide. “There are certain people on the Labor side I admire, and others I detest,” he says. I mention that I was once in a lift in the Commonwealth parliament offices in Sydney with federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten – I was writing a story about him – when Dutton got in, too, bringing the number of passengers to three. Shorten greeted Dutton in a perfunctory way. Dutton did not acknowledge him. At least, that’s the way I remember it.

“Really?” says Dutton. “That’s pretty unusual. I mean, I have a fair go at Bill at Question Time, but I exchange pleasantries … I actually believe manners are very important.”

It is Dutton’s policy to be polite not just to fellow parliamentarians but to the journalists who cover federal politics. Yes, there was that slip last year when he referred to senior News Corp correspondent Samantha Maiden, now with Sky News, as “a mad f…ing witch”. But it wasn’t his intention to offend her, he says. He used the phrase in a text message he wrote to a friend, the former South Australian Liberal MP Jamie Briggs, who had been the subject of a critical story by Maiden. He then mistakenly sent the message to Maiden instead of to Briggs.

“I apologised straight away to her,” Dutton says. Mind you, he doubts she or anyone else in the parliamentary press gallery was overly shocked. “I’ve heard plenty of journos, male and female, use much more robust language than that.”

Go ask Alan Joyce if that’s true.

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Anyway, on it went, with some criticism and some praise, but access carefully crafted to de-creep Pete through exposure to his ‘true values’, multi-cultural sensitivity and family as well as friend’s praise.

I have no idea if it worked for other readers but to me this is Mission:Impossible. Creepy Pete is creepy to look at, has creepy views, a creepy political history and a very creepy seven strong investment property portfolio. That is a very cogent set of signals all pointing one way: creepy!

If that’s the best the Coalition can do then it’s doomed. But there are other reasons to think that it is going to do it anyway. John Howard cut Do-Labor Malcolm loose on the weekend at The Australian:

John Howard has broken ranks with the Turnbull government to express concern over changes to the superannuation and taxation system designed to improve housing affordability, the third key budget measure the former prime minister has failed to fully ­endorse.

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In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Howard reiterated his “unease” with the government’s $6.2 billion levy on banks and reserved judgment on the $18.6bn school reforms because of claims it could strip almost 200 Catholic schools of future funding.

And on it went, emphasising values over policy at most points, by implication attacking Do-Labor Malcolm and celebrating Creepy Pete

Readers will know that I am strongly of the view that Coalition is doomed whatever it does until it addresses One Nation. Creepy Pete may well be the next evolution in that slow moving reality. He’s got good pedigree in persecuting refugees, is from QLD, and is a former policeman as well, boosting his “law and order” credentials. This is pretty good raw material for a One Nation wedge.

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But that also raises big dangers. In the end Creepy Pete will be judged on policy so what he does will matter more than who he is.

Changing leaders to a seasoned refugee head-kicker might suggest a renewed Coalition bait and switch on immigration: stick Creepy Pete in, persecute some more unfortunate refugees but keep the front door wide open to economic migrants. If so, it will not cut it with ON supporters.

And that raises a more fearful prospect. It might presage some form of Australian immigration apartheid that denies entry to Muslim peoples. That would probably work to kill ON but it would also seriously undermine the Coalition centre given it will be repulsive to any liberal worthy of the name. It is highly risky politically.

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The other policy shift that would end ON is cut the immigration intake in half. That would also sustain the Coalition centre and is the best course. But if so, why go with Creepy Pete at all, unless Do-Labor Malcolm is not prepared to do it?

One thing is certain, the Coalition is preparing to scrape the bottom of the barrel in its effort to survive.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.