Does Dutton have any wider issue with how the candidates for his party have been selected? Dutton turns from the issues with some of the selections to…Labor.

Dutton:

I think if you have a look at the candidates we’ve selected across many seats I believe they are unbelievable [contributers].

The Labor Party has had people who have been union secretaries, other positions in the union, CFMEU and others, there are Labor sitting members supported and endorsed and have been only able to come into parliament because of the CFMEU support.

Even to this day the financial support provided by the CFMEU through proxies to sitting Labor members. The CFMEU is an organised crime gang. They are involved in arrangements with outlaw motorcycle gang members. Am I going to take a moral lecture from Anthony Albanese when it comes to these matters? No I’m not. The Labor Party has ties with the CFMEU, $12 billion worth of donations from the CFMEU so were not taking any moral [lectures].

Asked about the comments about women in the ADF specifically, Dutton says:

I think you saw my record as Defence Minister in relation to women serving in any role they want to serving in the Australian Defence Force and that would be the position under any government I lead and I think I demonstrated when I was in the defence portfolio* and again I think this is a real consideration for people at this election.

The circumstances we live in the most precarious since 1945.

…I want to make sure we invest in defence. We need a leader of country to make decisions to keep our country say. I think the Prime Minister is out of his depth when it comes to economics and national security. I think he has demonstrated that in relation to funding profile in defence which I think is an outrage under this government.

*While Defence minister, Dutton took time out of his busy schedule to ban the ADF from having “woke” special events. He banned events which celebrated diverse and cultural causes and had particular issue with rainbow cupcakes which had been served as part of a morning tea recognising LGBTIQ+ ADF personnel;.

Sorry – just had to take a few moments to scream into the abyss there.

There was a question on the disendorsement of the Liberal candidate for Whitlam, which followed the Guardian’s Sarah Basford Canales excellent reporting on exactly who he was as a human.

Dutton says:

There were a number of issues not just those made public in relation to the candidate and we took a decision to replace the candidate, it’s the decision was taken. I wish him well and the only public commentary I have in relation to that.

Back to Dutton and he is asked:

Q: How are you feeling ahead of their interesting map and is it true the Prime Minister has Daniel Andrews helping him run lines?

How would Peter Dutton know who is on the Labor campaign? That’s like asking Anthony Albanese is it true that Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott/Peta Credlin are advising Peter Dutton? (they are.)

Dutton:

I’m looking forward to the debate tonight. We wrote to the PM months ago or two months ago I think it was, asking for four debate, so far he’s only committed to to formally and I hope you can commit to the other two. I’m looking forward to tonight. I hope that Daniel Andrews is out publicly with the Prime Minister if it’s good enough for him to tell the Prime Minister how he should run the debate on how we should run the economy and how good he did in Victoria. I’d love to see Daniel Andrews out with a premise every day between now and the election. If there is a spare seat, why not Jacinta Allan, Jacinta Allan, because if you want a snapshot of what economic management looks like under Labor, go no further than looking at what’s happening in Victoria, what happened under Daniel Andrews, under Jacinta Allan, and economic train wreck. Victorians know it. They are angry about it and if you think a second term of Labor is going to be any different to what we’ve seen in Victoria, then you don’t understand political history in the country. Reparation is good stop I’m looking forward to tonight.

Bloomberg is reporting that the Trump administration has just approved a trillion dollar – yep, with a t – defense budget. Far from being isolationist, or anti-war, it looks like the Trump administration is embarking on a major military buildup. Trump has stacked his cabinet with a bunch of senior officials, like Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who view China as an existential threat to American primacy that must be countered. That’s the kind of ideology we’re dealing with, and it’s about time our leaders recognized just how dangerous it is. 

In his press conference just now, Peter Dutton said this

JOURNALIST: Just on the potential of a looming recession, what sort of approach would the Coalition take? Would you rule out a large stimulus we saw during COVID under the Coalition and under Labor the GFC which people have attributed to avoiding a recession?

DUTTON: The Treasurer of our country is talking about the prospect of a recession or recession coming very quickly. That’s why he’s talking about 50 points reduction in interest rates. Unless he’s doing it for political reasons. But if he believes that it’s necessary to drop interest rates by 50 points in a month’s time, he’s telling Australians that there are difficult times ahead under Labor. That’s exactly what he’s doing.

Can I get a serious “what the utter hell??” First of all, these things are changing fast. On Friday the market was pricing in 4 rate cuts by the end of the year; by yesterday it was 5 cuts.

Chalmers yesterday talked about the prospect of rate cuts because that it what THE MARKET is anticipating. And why is it anticipating this? Because of Donald Trump. Blaming the ALP (or any political party) for what Donald Trump is doing to the entire global economy is rather incoherent.

Also does this mean a recession is coming? No – it means investors think Donald Trump is doing his best to kill the global economy and so as a result the RBA will cut rates to keep Australia’s economy from flatlining.

Suggesting a recession is coming is very foolish for any leader of a political party to suggest.

What would Dutton do differently when it came to the economy?

No answer here, but plenty of ‘not Labor’.

It’s been a long time where I have seen the prospect of a recession used for political gain. A long, long time.

The Treasurer of our country is talking about the prospect of a recession or recession coming very quickly. That’s why he’s talking about 50 points reduction in interest rates. Unless he’s doing it for political reasons. But if he believes that it’s necessary to drop interest rates by 50 points in a month’s time, he’s telling Australians that there are difficult times ahead under Labor. That’s exactly what he’s doing. As a Coalition I will always and Angus will always adhere to the principles of a Coalition government. That is to live within our means and make sure we can provide support to families and make sure we’re not continuing to build on the pressure that families are under by pushing prices up all the time. It’s what the economic decisions have ended up doing under this government as well

Peter Dutton then goes back to the nine years he spent as a police officer, which is the version of him he wants everyone to remember. He spent much longer as a property developer (about three decades) and he has been a politician for twice as long as he was a cop.

This would be like me claiming I understand everything there is to know about hospitality because I spent 10 years in the industry while going to uni years and years ago.

You can read more about who Dutton is, here – Lech Blaine’s excellent Quarterly Essay from a bit ago, Good Cop, Bad Cop

Dutton:

I think I demonstrated as a police officer I was always very serious about protecting the community and I did it for 10 years and very proud of my service as a police officer and you deal with some of the most difficult circumstances. For me, seeing women in domestic violence situations or seeing children having been sexually abused or taking a statement from somebody who had been sexually assaulted, that had a huge impact on me and it does to this day. I have always been influenced by how I can use the position that I’ve had to make our community safer. As home affairs and immigration minister, I brought in a lot of people, good people into our country. From all parts of the world, from war torn parts of the world. I cancelled the visas of over 6,000 people who had committed serious domestic violence offences, sexual offences against and children who had been involved in the importation of drugs and hard-core drugs that lead to kids breaking into houses and stealing cars to fuel the drug habit. I’m proud of that outcome. I’m not going to step back from it. Those numbers of doportations have fallen under a cliff. They don’t see it as a priority. Would I do everything I could within my power to keep Australians safe? Absolutely.

OK, what is with these questions – not on what a Dutton government would do differently, but a dixer on what the Coalition think has gone wrong?

Q: What danger is there for you that voters stick with the devil they know?

Dutton:

How can we help families and how can we help businesses get through this really difficult period under Labor? This is three years that people want to forget. It’s a 3-year lost period for our country. If you’re a family with an average mortgage you’ve gone back $50,000 under this government.

The Prime Minister is promising 70 cents a day by way of tax cut in 15 months time which shows he’s completely out of touch with Australians and where they’re at at the moment. Our plan is to provide immediate assistance from day one with a 25 per litre reduction in unleaded and diesel. That will have a positive impact not just for families, to help them out if they’re a 2-car family, probably about $30 a week.(This has already been shown to be overstated)

With our other policies, we can help business bring their costs down as well so we don’t see further increases in electricity costs, gas prices and groceries. Families are putting items out of their trolley, back on to the shelves under this government because they can’t afford the bill when they get to the checkout. People are stopping going to the doctor’s under the Albanese government because they can’t afford the out of pocket expense.

That’s the economy that Labor has created. And if we see further actions out of the US, or retaliatory action from China or other countries, then there is a very significant chance of a recession in the US, of a global recession otherwise. And those waves, huge tsunami waves will hit our shores in no time at all.

We need a government able to deal with it. That’s what Angus and I and Jane and our team offer to the Australian people at the next election.

Angus Taylor is at this press conference as well. WHAT JOY.

Peter Dutton is then asked if Australia is headed into recession and says:

It is under Labor. The government hasn’t prepared our economy. Labor has made decisions in subsequent budgets now which make it harder for the economy to function with international head winds. As we’ve seen with Labor governments at a state level but previous Labor governments as well, there is always a desire to spend and then to tax and inflation goes up and prices go up across the economy. (The Coalition are against Labor’s latest tax cuts and say they will repeal them, which means that they are vowing to tax more in this instance)

That’s exactly what’s happened again under this Labor government. I think there are real concerns. What is best for the Australian economy. and we have strong managers of the Australian economy ..and we can achieve that after the election with a change of government.

We have done it before and as you know during the course of COVID, and I sat around the table for all of these decisions in relation to COVID about how we should help families and small businesses and people retain their jobs, and their connection with employers and we provided that support to get us through the period of COVID.

We have made decisions in the Budget which put us in a much better position going into COVID than what this government has created over the last three years going into what is a period of uncertainty. Australians do know the Coalition is a better economic manager than the Labor Party and we’ll demonstrate that after the election but this is a big decision for Australians. We need to make sure we don’t have a Green-Labor government in Canberra because it would be a disaster for families and for the economy more broadly.

The government gave billions of dollars to companies who did not need it as part of jobkeeper