2 days Ago By Matthew Knott
It’s a sight few would have had on their bingo card for the second full day of the election campaign: Peter Dutton removing his shoes to enter a mosque. Yet there the opposition leader was on Sunday at the Al Madinah Masjid in Leppington in western Sydney. And not just visiting but offering $25,000 for closed-circuit cameras to help keep the mosque’s Muslim worshippers safe.
After all, Dutton has faced regular condemnation from Islamic leaders for his comments on Muslim immigration and his unwavering support for Israel during the war in Gaza. Cricketer Usman Khawaja branded Dutton “an absolute disgrace” last July for saying a minority Labor government would be a disaster because “it’ll include Muslim candidates from western Sydney”. Dutton has also argued against accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza on the grounds they pose a national security risk, and in 2016, caused a stir by telling parliament the Fraser government had made a mistake by allowing so many Lebanese Muslims to migrate to Australia.
Dutton has said he has apologised for the comments, but community leaders insist they have no memory of him doing so . Dutton has visited a mosque before – in the West Australian town of Katanning in 2016, for example – but this was a rare event. Now, the election campaign is in full swing, and Dutton is chasing votes in ethnically and religiously diverse communities.
With his striking decision to visit a mosque before a church, synagogue, or Hindu temple, Dutton was inviting voters to take another look at him and reassess their assumptions. All Australians deserve to be able to “worship in peace and harmony”, he said during the mosque visit. As well as the minister for immigration, home affairs and defence, Dutton has served as the Coalition’s de facto minister for 2GB over the past decade, dialling in for regular chats with Sydney’s conservative talkback station.
In the early days of the campaign, he is also presenting himself as the minister for SBS, filling his campaign itinerary with stops designed to present him as a champion of multiculturalism. To be sure, Dutton is still trying to appeal to white, working-class voters in suburban and regional Australia. He kicked off his campaign at the XXXX brewery in Brisbane and, on Sunday, put on a high-vis vest to visit a western Sydney brick factory .
After his plane arrived at Sydney airport, he dialled into 2GB for a phone interview. Less predictably, before his mosque visit, he attended an Assyrian New Year event in Independent MP Dai Le’s electorate of Fowler, mingling with migrants who have fled persecution in countries such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. The Liberal Party has no hope of winning that seat, but the photos of a smiling Dutton holding babies in traditional Assyrian costumes sent a broader message that he cares about voters from backgrounds different to his own.
A key event on the first day of Dutton’s campaign was to visit a yum cha restaurant in the Brisbane electorate of Moreton, where he mingled with leaders from the local Chinese-Australian community and offered funding for the Chinese Museum of Queensland. Again, this visit was not so much about winning Moreton, which is held by Labor on a comfortable margin, as sending a broader message to voters around the country. Chinese-Australian voters swung hard against the Liberal Party at the last election, in part because of Dutton’s comments about a possible war with Taiwan.
The party’s election review identified rebuilding trust with Chinese Australians as a top priority, and Dutton has noticeably tried to moderate his rhetoric on Beijing. Last year, during a visit to Australia by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, he even described himself as “pro-China” – a phrase one could not have imagined him using just a few years earlier. Dutton hopes winning back votes with Chinese Australians will help him claim Labor-held seats such as Bennelong in Sydney and Chisholm in Melbourne.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton visits the Al Madinah Mosque in Leppington, Sydney, on Sunday. Credit: James Brickwood Peter Low, a leader of Brisbane’s Chinese-Australian community who dined with Dutton, said: “Originally, a lot were against [Dutton] because of his stance on China.” But Low said Dutton’s softer rhetoric and the departure of Scott Morrison had lifted the Liberal Party’s standing with Chinese Australians.
But the task ahead of Dutton is formidable. Labor will seek to capitalise on its success in restoring normal trade ties and diplomatic relations with Beijing. And many Muslim voters will remember Dutton’s controversial past comments despite his mosque visit.
During Dutton’s tour of the Leppington mosque, its leaders stressed that they were not endorsing the Liberal leader and did not agree with all his past remarks about Muslim Australians. Dutton has also pledged to cut the permanent migration intake, worrying ethnic communities who fear it will become more difficult to bring their relatives to the country. Dutton now has five frantic weeks of campaigning left to soften his hardline image and sell himself as the man best to lead modern multicultural Australia.
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