Peter Dutton ends post-election silence to weigh into security debate

3 months ago 24

Peter Dutton has entered the political fray for the first time since the election to praise Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s decision to reassemble the security mega-department that the former opposition leader and home affairs minister helped create.

The government removed ASIO and the Australian Federal Police from Home Affairs’ control in its last term but reversed that move after the election, in part due to lessons learned from an alleged attempted plane hijacking in Victoria earlier this year.

Peter Dutton last spoke publicly when he returned to Canberra days after the election to farewell staff and clear his office.

Dutton was a major advocate for establishing the Department of Home Affairs when it was set up in 2017 and became the first minister in charge of the department that combined law enforcement with intelligence agencies and border security.

When Labor came to power, it commissioned reports that concluded the department was dysfunctional in key areas such as visa vetting, used the findings to attack Dutton’s record, and moved responsibility for police and intelligence to the Attorney-General’s Department.

But the alleged attempted hijacking of a Jetstar flight at Avalon Airport by a 17-year-old in March and communications issues about the Dural caravan incident in January convinced the government to move the agencies back under Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to speed up intelligence sharing.

Dutton told this masthead that without a central department coordinating the security agencies, they could fail to work together effectively to stop crimes.

“We stopped terrorist attacks from taking place because of Home Affairs and I had a real focus on child protection, which rightly involved a co-ordinated effort from all the agencies,” Dutton said.

“[Former Labor leader] Kim Beazley was a strong advocate of the Home Affairs Department and minister Burke has done the right thing in bringing it back together. Credit should also be given to [inaugural home affairs boss] Mike Pezzullo without whom the department wouldn’t have been a great success.”

The former Coalition leader vowed on May 7, four days after losing the federal election and his seat, not to offer commentary on politics, unlike previous leaders such as Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.

“I feel there are lots of opportunities [for life after politics] but most importantly, to spend some time with family and friends and that’s about it,” Dutton said on May 7 at Canberra airport, as he returned to the capital to clear his office. “The easiest thing for former leaders to do is to maintain a graceful silence.”

His decision to comment on the security shake-up signals its importance to Dutton’s legacy as a career politician of 24 years.

Dutton has not made clear his post-election plans, and his former parliamentary colleagues have heard little from him. New Coalition leader Sussan Ley has made a point of reversing the Dutton-era stance on Welcome to Country ceremonies and is open to quotas for women candidates.

Moderates in the Turnbull government, including former attorney-general George Brandis, fought the creation of the department because they believed the first law officer should oversee powerful spy agencies, which have extensive powers.