Remember that chilling two days in August where it felt like a real possibility that Peter Dutton might be our Prime Minister by the end of the week?
Peter Dutton does. And he’s not even mad or anything.
The former Queensland cop and current Minister For Home Affairs And Not Being Mad gave an interview to Brisbane paper The Sunday Mail, and he shows all the restraint of someone who’s counting on not having a job in a few months.
“I am the first to defend the legacy of the Turnbull government,” Dutton says, because before you bitch about someone you always preface it with ‘Look, I love her really, she can be so lovely, BUT.’
“Malcolm was strong on economic management, borders and national security, but Malcolm will trash his own legacy if he believes his position is strengthened by seeing us lose under Scott [Morrison],” Dutton goes on.
“Malcolm is charming and affable but he doesn’t have a political bone in his body and it’s not a criticism, but without political judgment you can’t survive in politics and he didn’t.”
He says the 2016 election campaign that saw the Coalition scrape a victory was “the worst campaign in Liberal Party history”, and calls the most recent former PM “worse than Rudd”, “incompetent” and “spiteful”, which sounds bad but whatever.
“We went from three-word slogans under Tony [Abbott] to 3,000 under Malcolm and our achievements weren’t effectively communicated as a result.” Because apparently if an achievement can’t be boiled down to a three-word slogan it can’t be communicated effectively?
And in what I must concede is a Shorten-worthy zinger, he criticises Turnbull’s born-to-rule persona: “Malcolm had a plan to become Prime Minister but no plan to be Prime Minster.”
There’s still a cloud over Dutton’s eligibility to sit in Parliament, following suggestions his childcare business benefited from decisions made by his government – but it’s highly unlikely this will be resolved before the election.
But given the government’s headed for an absolute pasting, he might quietly slink out once it looks like Labor will have the numbers to refer him to the High Court.
The bus is the election.
And if this is the content we’re getting before the Coalition lose that election, imagine what’ll happen once they do? MPs former and current will be lining up to spill the tea. This is just the delicious, piping hot beginning.