Politics

Peter Dutton admits ‘we’re on track for a Shorten-led government’

Apr 05, 2018

Peter Dutton has said Turnbull could be on track to lose the election. Source: Getty.

Peter Dutton has admitted Malcolm Turnbull could be on track to lose the next election to Labor leader Bill Shorten, but insists he will remain loyal to him to the end.

The home affairs minister recently warned any politician who is not completely loyal to the prime minister to resign, insisting he’d do the same if he was in that position. However, his current hopes for the Liberal party aren’t great.

Speaking to Ray Hadley on 2GB radio, Dutton weighed in on the fact Turnbull is now facing his 30th consecutive Newspoll fail, and admitted: “At the moment we’re on track for a Shorten-led government and that would be a disaster for our country.”

However, he remains hopeful that the PM and his colleagues can still turn it around, with less focus on “personal issues” and “dramas” in the Senate, which he says have clouded the party’s message over the last few years.

“I’ve been in politics for 16 or 17 years. A day’s a long time in politics, that is the reality,” he said on the show.

“We’re up against it at the moment, but we’ve got a good story to tell in terms of the management of the economy. We inherited enormous debt, and we want to be doing more in terms of different areas of public policy. We’ve got a Senate that’s nearly impossible to work with to get the changes through, deliver the savings or put the Budget back on a path to surplus, and I think we’ve done a remarkable job with the economy.”

He added: “Over the course of the last couple of years the dramas in the Senate, the problems around personal issues, have taken a lot of oxygen out of the message.”

Pledging his loyalty to Turnbull once again, Dutton insisted he accepted an offer from former PM Tony Abbott through that same loyalty, and he didn’t intend to go back on it now.

When host Ray Hadley said he understands “the captain goes down with the ship”, but there may come a time when executives want to jump to a new ship, Dutton responded: “From my perspective mate. I don’t serve in the cabinet if I cant be loyal, and I think as a team, we can defeat Shorten. I think there is a huge hesitation within the public’s mind as to who Shorten is and what he represents.”

Turnbull has now suffered his 29th consecutive Newspoll loss. It means that he’s one loss away from matching Abbott’s 30-poll losing streak.

Turnbull took over from Abbott as the Liberal Party leader in 2015, noting the 30 losses in a row as his main reason ditching Abbott. However, Dutton has insisted he remains a committed to the PM.