Dutton’s 5-step disaster plan: Take to the caravans!

With his electorate directly in Cyclone Alfred's path, Peter Dutton flew to Sydney for a lavish event and ramped up the dog-whistling, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.

LAST WEEK saw would-be PM and overlord Peter Dutton in flight mode — literally.

As Cyclone Alfred advanced towards Queensland and his own electorate of Dickson, Pete was ready to go with his “foolproof” campaign plan, which included the following time-honoured moves (though not necessarily in this order):

1. Ramp up explosive dog-whistling

As always, the most critical weapon in Dutton’s political artillery is maintaining a constant stream of terrifying stories to ensure the electorate is as alarmed and insecure as possible, at all times.

So far this year, Dutton repeatedly warned us all of an antisemitic terror plot involving an explosives-laden caravan in Dural, NSW. This of course involved just the right amount of intrigue to fuel fear and insecurity but also enough of a racial element to stoke any latent xenophobia — perfect!

Unfortunately for Pete, not only did the alleged terror campaign come to nought, but his complete disinterest in any actual danger to the community was exposed when it became clear that Dutton refused briefings from security agencies regarding the veracity or otherwise of the terror plot.

We now know this to be the case, despite Dutton and his disciple, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs James Patterson, relentlessly hounding the PM in the media for weeks about how much he knew and when and accusing him of “disinterest”.

This, said Pete (and echoed James), was “believed to be the biggest planned terrorist attack” in Australia’s history and evidence of “security failure” on the part of the Labor Government.

When Paterson was finally asked how much he knew and when he knew it, he replied:

"I’m generally reluctant to talk about these briefings. They happen all the time. They're highly sensitive and we don't even normally confirm that they occur, let alone the contents of them…"

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2. Sabotage Labor's election plans

Dutton had kicked off the week by creating a kafuffle over when the election might be called and the etiquette of such an announcement, declaring that “now was not the time”.

And, throwing in a partisan dig against the PM for good measure, Dutton told Radio 4BC on Wednesday:

I think the Prime Minister would have a tin ear to do that…

People probably want from their prime minister governing not campaigning, at a time like this.

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3. Avoid hoses, mops and sandbags at all costs

When he made his “tin ear” comments, it’s likely the Opposition Leader wanted to avoid any association between him and Morrison’s “I don’t hold a hose, mate” moment, which was when the previous Coalition PM went on holiday in Hawaii as fires ripped through the nation back in 2019.

Clearly thinking he would get away with it, Pete promptly skipped the whole boring climatic mess and managed to catch the party – sorry, fundraiser – of the season, at the Sydney Harbour mansion of hospitality mogul and key Liberal donor, Justin Hemmes. With his electorate of Dickson directly in the firing line of Cyclone Alfred, Dutton avoided potential flood waters lapping at the doors of his constituents and flew to Sydney, especially for the event.

In an uncharacteristic act of reporting the facts, the cheerleader media (who usually run interference for him) actually noticed Dutton’s absence (or perhaps there were just too many reports to ignore) and the would-be PM was soon on the back foot.

As images of Treasurer Jim Chalmers wading in floods and filling sandbags, and Albanese giving calm, measured and decidedly non-partisan pressers hit our screens, Pete could be seen whooping it up in Vaucluse.

Dutton later insisted it was all fine as it was not a "party" it was a "fundraiser" and he had to fundraise because:

"I don't have the millions of dollars coming from the CFMEU and the other unions. And the Prime Minister attends fundraisers."

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4. Mumble thanks to emergency workers and platitudes for disaster victims

The Opposition Leader knows the value of maintaining a façade of empathy and appreciation — especially since the Coalition under Morrison lacked empathy to such a degree it needed to have extremely expensive and very special lessons in order to appear otherwise.

Thus, Dutton made lots of gushing statements this week, in which he thanked people far and wide and promised assistance aplenty.

5. Never actually fund anything/anyone that doesn’t return the favour

Once again, it’s important to look at the Coalition’s record and that of Dutton himself when assessing if such appreciation would ever translate into practical assistance.

In Dutton’s case, at the first sign of a natural disaster, he has already attended the lavish party of one of his billionaire donor mates as Queensland prepared for a cyclone.

He has already promised, if elected, to make massive cuts to public service – Elon Musk style – which will undoubtedly affect the future administration of disaster relief to affected communities.

When he was Defence Ministerduring the horrendous 2022 floods across eastern Australia, Pete started a GoFundMe instead of providing government financial support.

And to add insult to injury, funds from this little fundraiser were discovered to have flowed – via a small community group not listed with the national charities register and with close links to him as the beneficiary –directly into Dutton's electorate of Dickson.

For now, attacks and fearmongering notwithstanding, the wheels have well and truly fallen off Peter Dutton’s explosive campaign caravan. [Sad trombone.]

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Follow managing editor Michelle Pini on Bluesky @michellepini.bsky.social and Independent Australia @independentaus.bsky.social.