Peter Dutton failed as Health Minister. His track record since then is even worse.
Most recently Peter Dutton told us that white South African farmers needed our help. He was rebuked by Julie Bishop who said that Australia’s Humanitarian Visa Program will not be changed. Typically, Malcolm Turnbull avoided the issue.
Peter Dutton recently commented that ‘South African farmers are the sort of migrants that we want to bring to our country’. As former white British colonies we share a dark racist history with South Africa. We should not repeat it, The infamous ‘dictation test’ to enforce White Australia was copied from Natal. We fought in the Boer War on behalf of British Whites. Robert Menzies and John Howard bitterly opposed the dismantling of apartheid .
As Minister for Immigration in 1981, Ian Macphee was concerned about racial violence in WA against Asian immigrants. We were advised by our own department officials and the police that much of this violence was provoked by white migrants from Southern Rhodesia. I am not sure how successful we were, but we attempted to put a stop to migration of these sorts of people from southern Africa.
After Nelson Mandela came to power there was a rush of White South Africans ‘packing for Perth’ as Jon Piccini described in The Conversation of March 19 2018 .
Malcolm Fraser must be turning in his grave at the welcome Peter Dutton is extending to Afrikaaner farmers.
Does Peter Dutton want a repeat of this dark racist history? Perhaps he does.
Then there is the brutality of Peter Dutton’s approved regime to punish asylum seekers in order to deter new arrivals. Numerous international agencies, including the UN have pointed to countless cases of physical and psychological abuse. Unfortunately the ALP has soiled its hands as much as Peter Dutton on this issue.
Peter Dutton attempted to amend the Citizenship Act to extend the qualifying period for applicants, raising the English language requirements, banning citizens whose conduct was inconsistent with Australian values (whatever that meant) and limiting the number of times a migrant applicant could sit the Australian citizenship test. This enterprise of Peter Dutton’s was all political as well as being ‘poisonous and pointless’ as Peter Hughes described in Pearls and Irritations. In the end, Peter Dutton was left with scarcely a supporter. The citizenship legislation had to be completely withdrawn, but not before it had all blown up in his face with the citizenship fiasco problems of members of parliament, including the Deputy Prime Minister.
One of Peter Dutton’s creations has been the Australian Border Force in 2014. The force has been one disaster after another, which has now culminated in the dismissal of its Commissioner, Roman Quaedvlieg. ABF is in a mess. In regard to both the Home Affairs Department and the ABF, Peter Dutton has clearly shown that he cannot manage and control organizations for which he is responsible.
His harassment and attacks on non-white people was vividly illustrated in his attacks on ‘African gangs’ in Melbourne. He told us that citizens were afraid to go out to dinner. As usual, Malcolm Turnbull tagged along in support. It was no concern of Peter Dutton and Malcolm Turnbull that last November the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency declared that crime had decreased 6% in Victoria, the largest drop in 12 years. The Economist Intelligence Unit also published an annual Safe Cities Index which listed Melbourne as the fifth safest city in the world with better rankings than any other Australian city.
Most recently Peter Dutton weighed in with Michaelia Cash’s personal attacks on women staffers in Bill Shorten’s office. Sanctimoniously Peter Dutton said that he could not tolerate morals lessons from Labor figures, even though the ALP had not mentioned the personal behavior of Barnaby Joyce but drew attention to possible abuse of taxpayers funds. Peter Dutton added that ‘to be lectured by the Labor Party really sticks in the craw’. He did not have the same reticence when he attacked African gangs in Melbourne.
And then there was Peter Dutton’s first ministerial performance as Minister for Health in the Abbott government. As a result of his performance in Health, he had to be shifted to Immigration.
As Minister for Health he was responsible for the $7 co-payment mess which he vigorously pursued for months. He abolished the National Prevention Health Agency, an outcome which is disastrous for the long term health of Australians. He opposed the plain packaging of tobacco.
The Australian Doctor magazine has a readership of around 20,000, mostly GPs and specialists. In a survey of its readers, 46% out of 1,100 readers ranked him as ‘the worst health minister in 35 years’.
Surely Malcolm Turnbull knows what an embarrassment Peter Dutton is to him and to Australia. Unfortunately, Malcolm Turnbull depends on people like Peter Dutton to bolster his fragile prime ministership.
John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
14 responses to “JOHN MENADUE. Peter Dutton is an embarrassment for all of us. Repost from March 21 2018”
Matias Corman is the only one who can hold his head high in this disgraceful performance. He stayed loyal to the PM until forced to make a decision for the good of the party. Morrison and Bishop are both so full of their own importance they both deserve to be dropped from any front bench that may arise in the future.
Atta Girl, Joanne. And Hooray for Sarah Henderson, who has rebuffed the Right’s offer of a Cabinet seat saying: How would my electorate feel if I were to benefit from an act of treachery?
Having lost his initial bid this morning, Mr Dutton is now heading for the back bench. There he will sit, without portfolio and without the constraints of cabinet solidarity. It’s the preferred perch of political assassins, and I fear we have not heard the last of him.
Dangerous times, Australia.
Bill Shorten, a me-too percentage player if ever there was one, must be laughing all the way to the polling stations.
Thank you for that sobering analysis. The increasingly prevalent ‘three cheers view’ of Australian history depicts those who don’t get on board the gravy train as a little group preoccupied with the ‘gloomy’ view of history. But recent surveys reveal Australians in general, including the young, are losing trust in politicians and the perceived value of democracy itself is at an all time low. Psychically, mania is notoriously difficult to contain as Germany discovered in the 1930s, and manic reparation can be harder to see. When it comes to acknowledging cruel barbarities and their costs to indigenous people since early contact with Europeans, we said sorry about the stolen generations but not about murder, currently being uncovered in new research documenting the extent of massacres of indigenous people. Australia is a signatory to highly principled international laws and treaties of human and child rights, but coolly locks up, for years, in indefinite detention and subjects to well documented conditions of mental torture innocent people – genuine refugees (and their children!) who have broken neither domestic nor international laws. We abhor and selectively intervene in cases of aboriginal families abusing children, but lock up unacceptably disproportionate numbers of the same children in frightening, inappropriate situations of juvenile detention. We have very recently fought our way onto the Human Rights Council then quickly abhor the suggestion that we join other countries in eliminating the right to put immigrant children in detention.
Are we more at risk from a vulnerable person fleeing danger and seeking asylum? from a politician brandishing manic populist slogans promising protection and custodianship of our national spirit and identity? or from our own sense of despair when at a time of greatest need for clear sight and vigilance we appear gripped by apathy? Will the ‘’fair go’ Australian of the well-honed bullshit detector demand something actually honourable and worthy and inclusive with which it is actually possible to identify?
The Australian Center to Counter Child Exploitation set up under the control of Peter Dutton? Get serious. I can’t believe Derryn Hinch would fall for this plus them not cutting the energy bonus to pensioners to get him over the line with the big corporate tax cut robbery.
Bad enough to cut revenue forever by $7 billion a year by giving cash to overseas corporations but put Dutton in charge of the welfare of children? Dutton!
Don’t fall for it Derryn unless you will be robbing pensioners of their future for a quick bribe when there is no revenue to maintain pensions and healthcare because they have given it all away
I wouldn’t call Dutton an embarrassment. He is a sickening symptom of how this country has lost its way. I’d say most people are blissfully unaware of how Australia is marching to the right, aided by a compliant media.
His mere existence is a measure of the absolute weakness of Turnbull in the face of Right. A mere handful of extremists controls the everyday life of Australians and causes damage that will be difficult to reverse.
It is my belief that menzies was a major instigator of the war in vietnam,and was more pro war than his american counterparts.howards lickspittle approach to iraq still makes me boil.fraser for all his faults dealt with the vietnam refugee issue with great statesmanship, and remarkable humanity.the liberal party, which has always been anything but liberal, remembers the first two with great fondness, and the latter with much weeping and gnashing of teeth.how is it in this supposed great land that most of our well educated citizens voted for these men with such alacrity, and that the labour party has followed the libs down the road to the far right.poor fellow my country!!!
So all this Sudanese gangs in Melbourne and bringing poor persecuted white farmers to Australia is all about appeasing these white South African constituents in his seat of Dixon!
All the dog whistling and race baiting and bullshitting and putting his country and his own party up for ridicule is just to keep his corrupt stinking arse glued to his seat, and all the lurks and perks and rorts that one has become accustomed to!
KICK THE BASTARD OUT!
Adding to his lamentable record, was it not the case that Peter Dutton chose not to attend Kevin Rudd’s Apology to the First Peoples of this country in 2008.
I have yet to agree with Peter Dutton on anything on the political spectrum, thank you for putting the message so succinctly.
Peter Dutton is allowed his venomous rants simply because the person masquerading as Prime Minister of Australia is a spineless political and moral coward.
Ain’t it a fact.
You would think Dutton would be kept busy with his Monster Ministry wouldnt you? But no, there he is scouring the globe for “refugees” that suit his agenda. Meantime, a recent report on Border Force/Immigration shows there is a $2 BILLION shortfall – of money not accounted for, incorrectly or not approved, etc. So actually he is failing as a Minister of Everything, at least as much as he did as Health Minister.