Things got heated during a radio chat between Peter Dutton and Ray Hadley on Thursday, with the 2GB host cutting the home affairs minister’s interview short after accusing him of being too scared to “say what he really thinks”.
Shock jock Hadley accused the Liberal pollie of being “shackled by Cabinet” and compared Dutton and other ministers to “those dogs on the back shelf of a car” during the fiery interview. Before he brought the chat to an abrupt end, telling Dutton “we’ll leave it there, let’s not go any further”.
“I don’t want you to be sacked as immigration minister but I hope one day you can come on the program and say what you really think, that you’re not hamstrung by your cabinet commitments,” Hadley said.
“When it comes to challenging the prime minister you have to watch your Ps and Qs because you might end up the minister for nothing.”
Dutton responded by denying he was worried about upsetting Turnbull, saying it was the “last thing he’s concerned about”, before stressing that he is more than happy to speak his mind.
Hadley then challenged the cabinet minister and asked whether he thinks that tax cuts for big businesses is the most important issue in Australia, “yes or no”?
However, when Dutton replied by saying “two points. One is, energy is the most important issue at the moment”, Hadley lost his cool with his guest and offered to answer the questions for him.
“So the answer would be no, it’s not the biggest issue,” he said. “Let me answer for you. The answer Peter Dutton is no we don’t.”
Dutton then replied:“If you start providing the answers I’m going to start asking the questions.”
Hadley went on to slam federal treasurer Scott Morrison – who he previously dumped as a regular guest on his radio show – describing him as “subservient” to the PM, before describing Morrison and Turnbull as “numbskulls”.
He also advised Dutton to take a leaf out of Barnaby Joyce’s book after the former deputy prime minister described climate change policy as “bulls**t” on Thursday and urged the Turnbull government to address energy prices and stop strapping themselves into “this sort of blithering ideology that we, single-handedly, are going to cool the planet from a room in Canberra”.