Speaker 1: Jason. Hey, it's Ruby.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 3: Ruby, it's great to finally hear your voice and see
Speaker 3: you in person.
Speaker 2: It's so nice to be back, and I'm really excited
Speaker 2: to work with you. I've been admiring a journalism for
Speaker 2: a long time and I'm looking forward to this well.
Speaker 3: I've been a devoted listener and it's great to be
Speaker 3: working with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So let's get started. From Schwartz Media.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones, back from maternity leave and this is
Speaker 2: seven am. One thing that has surprised people this year
Speaker 2: is how often Peter Dutton has been able to wrong
Speaker 2: foot labor. According to staffers, a key part of this
Speaker 2: is the fact that Dutton is from Queensland and no
Speaker 2: Liberal leader has ever come from the state. With Queensland
Speaker 2: going to an election in October, the state campaign is
Speaker 2: now a testing ground for a new kind of politics
Speaker 2: Dutton is planning to bring to the federal campaign. Today
Speaker 2: special correspondent for The Today paper Jason cottsukus on how
Speaker 2: Dutton plans to make youth crime an election issue and
Speaker 2: whether Australia is ready to look more like Queensland.
Speaker 1: That's coming up. It's Monday, the fifteenth of July.
Speaker 2: Jason, this week you've been looking into the way events
Speaker 2: in Queensland informing Peter Dutton's vision for his party and
Speaker 2: for the country. Queensland is right now in the middle
Speaker 2: of an election campaign, So tell me what the election
Speaker 2: is being fought on.
Speaker 3: So the Queensland election will be on October twenty six,
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 4: This election is for our state. This election is for Queenslanders.
Speaker 3: And the state opposition leader David Chrisp fully has identified
Speaker 3: four key issues. Is that he intends to fight this
Speaker 3: election on cost of living crisis, a health crisis, the
Speaker 3: housing crisis and what the Liberal National Party in Queensland
Speaker 3: is calling the youth crime crisis.
Speaker 4: Friends of youth crime crisis has changed the way Queensland
Speaker 4: has lived their life. Our faith in the safety of
Speaker 4: our community has been shaken.
Speaker 3: So youth crime has become a huge issue in Queensland
Speaker 3: and the narrative has kind of been built around a
Speaker 3: number of quite serious, very high profile crimes committed by
Speaker 3: miners in Queensland in the past few years. In February
Speaker 3: this year, a seventy year old great grandmother named Violin
Speaker 3: White was allegedly attacked by a group of five teenagers
Speaker 3: in a supermarket car park and stabbed to death while
Speaker 3: she was shopping with a six year old girl. There
Speaker 3: was also the case of Emma Lovell, a forty one
Speaker 3: year old woman who was abbed after a violent home
Speaker 3: invasion on Boxing Day in twenty twenty two, and a
Speaker 3: year earlier, a seventeen year old boy driving a stolen
Speaker 3: car ran over a couple and killed them, and the
Speaker 3: woman was pregnant at the time. So I think those
Speaker 3: three crimes have created a lot of community concern. It's
Speaker 3: something that David Christoph fully has quite successfully latched onto
Speaker 3: at the Allen p State convention last weekend.
Speaker 4: The youth crime crisis keeps getting worse under Labor.
Speaker 3: This was the very much a focus of both his
Speaker 3: address to the Party Faithful and Peter Dutton's address the
Speaker 3: day before.
Speaker 4: When a young person turns eighteen, they stop offending. They
Speaker 4: know that depending on which side of Aideen they are,
Speaker 4: there will be different consequences.
Speaker 3: Rob and David Christoph fully unveiled a policy. This is
Speaker 3: I guess he's one of his market policies as we
Speaker 3: head towards the election, that youth offenders committing adult crimes
Speaker 3: should receive adult equivalent sentences.
Speaker 4: Today I announced we will restore consequences for actions for
Speaker 4: young criminals, adult crime, adult time.
Speaker 3: He's calling it adult time for adult crime. While Queenslanders
Speaker 3: believe that the majority of crime is being committed by children,
Speaker 3: that isn't born out in the facts. And the main
Speaker 3: thing that's making the community unsafe is is domestic violence.
Speaker 3: This is men harming women and children in their homes.
Speaker 3: But instead of focusing on that issue, both parties in
Speaker 3: Queensland are running on youth crime. This is a really
Speaker 3: crucial state election campaign, not just for Queenslanders but for
Speaker 3: the Liberal Party because if David CHRISTA. Foley wins as expected,
Speaker 3: he'll be the first mainland Liberal premier in the country.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure that if David Christofoley wins, it's going
Speaker 3: to give Peter Dutton a lot of confidence as we
Speaker 3: go to a federal election expected around May next year.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Peter Dutton was famously a police officer before
Speaker 2: he became a politician, so being tough on crime is.
Speaker 1: Very much part of his rhetoric. It always has been.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me specifically about some of the things
Speaker 2: that we've heard from him in the past about youth crime.
Speaker 3: Well, I think right from the moment that Peter Dutton
Speaker 3: entered Parliament Federal Parliament in two thousand and one, crime
Speaker 3: LAURA and order have been staples of his public comments.
Speaker 5: I often say to people that as a police officer,
Speaker 5: I've seen the best and the worst that society has
Speaker 5: to offer.
Speaker 3: He also didn't hesitate to speak out on more kind
Speaker 3: of state based crime issues. In twowenty eighteen, the death
Speaker 3: of a South Sudanese teenager in Melbourne's CBD was, according
Speaker 3: to Peter Dutton, indicative of a major laura or a
Speaker 3: problem Victoria. He also said that Victorians were too frightened
Speaker 3: to go out to restaurants because of the problem surrounding
Speaker 3: African gang violence.
Speaker 5: Now people are scared to go out to restaurants at
Speaker 5: nighttime because they're followed home by these gangs. Home invasions
Speaker 5: and cars are stolen and which need to cause what
Speaker 5: it is, of course of the African gang violence.
Speaker 3: In May he announced a couple of initiatives that one
Speaker 3: of those was he criminalized you know, showing off of
Speaker 3: crimes on social media.
Speaker 5: We want to give the new Safety Commissioner the power
Speaker 5: to pull content down, so the videos or the photos
Speaker 5: can be pulled down. Secondly, we want to make an
Speaker 5: offense to post them, and we want to stop people
Speaker 5: using social media as a penalty and the technology.
Speaker 3: He also said that he would keep the age of
Speaker 3: criminal responsibility at ten years old.
Speaker 5: If children at that age who are ten or twelve
Speaker 5: years of age out stealing cars and involved in crime,
Speaker 5: if they know and they can work out pretty quickly
Speaker 5: there's no penalty that they're facing, then they're just encouraged
Speaker 5: to continue that life of crime. And that's not what
Speaker 5: you want.
Speaker 3: When we talk about Peter Dutton, we don't just say
Speaker 3: that he was a former police officer. It's always somehow
Speaker 3: that he's a former Queensland copper. And I think that
Speaker 3: does also remind us that Peter Duttany is the first
Speaker 3: leader of the Federal Coalition who wasn't from Sydney or Melbourne,
Speaker 3: and I think his Queensland identity is really starting to
Speaker 3: show in the way that he's leading the Federal Coalition
Speaker 3: and the policy directions that he's taking them on.
Speaker 2: Jason Peter Dutton, we all know, began his working life
Speaker 2: as a police officer in Queensland, He's now the first
Speaker 2: Federal Coalition leader who doesn't come from either Sydney or Melbourne.
Speaker 2: So how should we think about this. How does being
Speaker 2: from Queensland impact the way that Dunne works and what
Speaker 2: he focuses on.
Speaker 3: Well, I think Ruby, the thing about being a leader
Speaker 3: of the Federal Coalition from Melbourne or Sydney means you're
Speaker 3: probably more in tune with some of the Liberal Party's
Speaker 3: biggest traditional supporters, and that is Corporate Australia. But being
Speaker 3: from Queensland means it gives you more license to follow
Speaker 3: policies that aren't necessarily the sort of things that the
Speaker 3: big business would want. The most prominent anti business establishment
Speaker 3: platform that Peter Dutton spoke from was his opposition to
Speaker 3: the Voice referendum last year.
Speaker 5: I think there are debates that Corporate Australia should be
Speaker 5: involved in, and at the moment I don't think they're
Speaker 5: paying due consideration to the views of their workforce.
Speaker 3: Corporate Australia was very much behind the Voice referendum, the
Speaker 3: Yes campaign and Peter Dutton was diametrically opposed to the
Speaker 3: Voice and Peter Dutton's No campaign and the substantial victory
Speaker 3: that the no campaign had. I think that gave him
Speaker 3: the confidence to say, well, I can go against what
Speaker 3: corporate Australia wants and campaigns for and still win. And
Speaker 3: he's used that experience to pursue other things that big
Speaker 3: business doesn't like. One policy that he announced just this
Speaker 3: month was this idea that if supermarkets like Cole's and
Speaker 3: Woolies and West Farmers which owns the Bunnings hardware franchise,
Speaker 3: if they're getting too powerful and misusing their market power,
Speaker 3: then Peter Dutton is saying he's going to force them
Speaker 3: to divest some of their businesses. And this idea that
Speaker 3: the government would intervene into the market and force a
Speaker 3: need to sell off parts of its business. This does
Speaker 3: go against what the Liberal Party stands for. Peter Dutton's
Speaker 3: plan for incorporating nuclear energy into our national energy mix.
Speaker 3: He's also raising eyebrows inside the Liberal Party because Peter
Speaker 3: Dutton is saying that he's not going to leave it
Speaker 3: to the market to provide nuclear power. He's going to
Speaker 3: not only intervene into the market, but the Commonwealth would
Speaker 3: own the whole nuclear power supply chain.
Speaker 5: I don't want the lights to go out. I want
Speaker 5: them to be reliable power. I want pensions to be
Speaker 5: able to pay their bills and turn the air conditioning
Speaker 5: on to get through winter. I want to make sure
Speaker 5: that businesses can grow here, not close and move to
Speaker 5: Malaysia or somewhere else in Ontario.
Speaker 3: Peterduton wants people to see him as someone who is
Speaker 3: aligned with the interests of small business, not big business.
Speaker 3: And the more that he does that, Peter Dutton believes,
Speaker 3: the more chance he has of becoming Prime Minister next year.
Speaker 2: Right, so, it sounds like, at least at this moment
Speaker 2: in time, this approach of ignoring some of the corporate
Speaker 2: agenda is working for Dunton.
Speaker 1: I suppose The question is how far.
Speaker 2: He can take this given the factions within his own
Speaker 2: party and the desires of the traditional base of the coalition.
Speaker 3: Well so, the kinds of policies that Peter Dunton has
Speaker 3: been pursuing has left some long term observers of Liberal
Speaker 3: Party politics like Judith Brett. She was a professor of
Speaker 3: politics at the Trope University. She's spent much of her
Speaker 3: life researching the Liberal Party. She says that she doesn't
Speaker 3: really know what the Liberal Party stands for anymore. What
Speaker 3: are the Liberal Party's core beliefs. In her view, the
Speaker 3: Liberal Party is one of the great Australian political parties.
Speaker 3: It's a party that is there to really serve the
Speaker 3: national interest, and she doesn't understand why the moderate faction
Speaker 3: of the Liberal Party, these are people like Simon Birmingham
Speaker 3: and Jane Hume, are letting Peter Dutton take the Liberal
Speaker 3: Party off course. Then it shows that they must be
Speaker 3: completely powerless inside the hearty room, and that their failure
Speaker 3: to stand up for what are the Liberal Party's core
Speaker 3: beliefs is really a symptom of the weakness of a
Speaker 3: sensible center inside the Liberal Party at the moment.
Speaker 2: So if we talk a little bit more about if
Speaker 2: and when the coalition might get into government, do you
Speaker 2: think that this law and order agenda will translate on
Speaker 2: a national level Competer Dutton win a federal election by
Speaker 2: promising to be tough on crime.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a really good question because when Peter
Speaker 3: Dutton is talking about youth crime, he's signaling to young
Speaker 3: parents and parents in out of suburban areas that he's
Speaker 3: concerned about the issues that they're concerned about, and showing
Speaker 3: that he's in sick with what their concerns are. Peter
Speaker 3: Dutton has twenty one seats in Queensland, so he's got
Speaker 3: Queensland locked up pretty well. But he also needs to
Speaker 3: really win some of those inner suburban seats, the ones
Speaker 3: that are held by the so called teals. This is
Speaker 3: seats like Coo Young in Melbourne, went Worth in Sydney,
Speaker 3: Curtain Over in Perth. There's a lot of fund managers
Speaker 3: who live in those seats and right now I don't
Speaker 3: think pen Dutton is giving them a lot of reason
Speaker 3: to vote for it. And at some point the Liberal
Speaker 3: Party will have to win back those voters if they're
Speaker 3: going to get into government.
Speaker 2: Jason, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thanks Ruby, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you.
Speaker 2: Likewise, also in the news today, Donald Trump has been
Speaker 2: rushed from a stage at a political rally in Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: in what is being investigated as an assassination attempt. Two
Speaker 2: people are dead, including a suspected gunman. In video and
Speaker 2: photo footage from the event, the former president can be
Speaker 2: seen with blood his face as he was escorted off
Speaker 2: the stage by secret service. Trump held his fist in
Speaker 2: the air. President Biden has condemned the attack. Saying there's
Speaker 2: no place in America for this kind of violence, and
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Anthony Abernezi has said there is no legitimate
Speaker 2: place in the labor movement for John Seca. Seca announced
Speaker 2: his immediate resignation as the secretary of the Victorian branch
Speaker 2: of the CFMEU late on Friday over explosive reports from
Speaker 2: the Nine newspapers that senior biky figures and criminals have
Speaker 2: infiltrated the union. The Victorian opposition has called for an
Speaker 2: urgent investigation into the CFMEU.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See you tomorrow.