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<div id="gmail-story-primary-asset" class="gmail-media-image gmail-view-large"><div class="gmail-story-image gmail-secondary-asset gmail-landscape"><a href="https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/363656282153cc1033aeb7df5ad27ecf" class="enlarge gmail-zoomable gmail-zoom-on"><img alt="Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP" class="gmail-loaded" src="https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/363656282153cc1033aeb7df5ad27ecf?width=650" width="650" height="365"></a>Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP</div></div><ul id="gmail-story-info" class="gmail-story-info--has-author gmail-story-info--has-comments gmail-view-xlarge"><li class="gmail-story-info__byline gmail-story-info__byline--full"><div class="gmail-author"><div class="gmail-author-module gmail-no-bio"><div class="gmail-author-module__header"><h2 class="gmail-author-module__heading"><a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/Michael+McKenna" rel="author">Michael McKenna</a></h2></div><div class="gmail-author-module__content"><div class="gmail-author-module__title">analysis</div></div><div class="gmail-author-module__footer"><div class="gmail-author-module__twitter"><a href="http://twitter.com/McKennaattheOz" rel="me" target="_blank">@McKennaattheOz</a></div></div></div>
<img class="gmail-tcog-pixel gmail-loading" src="https://i1.wp.com/pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/472790e77bdf12e832b6257f33b7008c/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/broadsheet/components/article-author/widget&td_bio=false&td_bylinetitle=analysis&td_location=none" style="opacity: 0; height: 0px; width: 0px;" width="0" height="0">
</div></li><li class="gmail-story-info__timestamp">12:00AM August 21, 2018</li><li class="gmail-story-info__comments"><a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/people-pan-peter-but-he-speaks-the-language-of-the-battlers/news-story/776a8ff34dd91cbfd05988b703641724#story-comments" id="gmail-scroll-comments"><span class="gmail-livefyre-commentcount">173 <em>Comments</em></span></a></li></ul><div id="gmail-story-description"><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">Peter Dutton is used to a political fight. </p></div><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">The
former policeman, who snatched his seat off then Labor frontbencher
Cheryl Kernot as an unknown in 2001, has been brawling over policy and
power since entering parliament. And despite the public declarations
yesterday of support for Malcolm Turnbull, Queensland’s Liberal National
Party is behind the scenes fanning a leadership challenge.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">The
LNP machine, much of its membership and many of its federal
parliamentarians — in the great tradition of self-preservation — want a
change to Dutton.</p><div id="gmail-vidora-top" class="gmail-circular-widget gmail-view-xlarge gmail-circular-loaded"><h3 class="gmail-circular-widget__heading">Read Next</h3></div><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">The
Queensland MP has shown he can hold a marginal seat, and many believe
he can sharpen that winning edge across the battleground state where 21
of the 30 federal seats are held by the LNP. Eight are on margins of 4
per cent or less, and have been seesawing between both sides of politics
for a decade — the exception being Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, on
Brisbane’s northern outskirts, which he has won in six tight elections.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">Dutton
might be the galvanising target of hatred for social progressives over
his uncompromising, unapologetic rhetoric — whether it be on health,
crime or immigration — but, according to LNP insiders, it is the
language many Queenslanders understand.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">One senior LNP insider told <i>The Australian</i> the father of three may be the “only hope of holding onto power’’.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">“Peter
is able to take complex policy issues and talk about them in everyday
language that Australians understand,’’ he said. “It was the same thing
with John Howard, with Barnaby Joyce and people like Matt Canavan.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">“Turnbull
just can’t cut through, and he talks about things that don’t mean much
to the average person, who is worried about their jobs, rising costs,
and live in these marginal electorates.’’</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">It
was Turnbull’s mantra about the country needing to be agile and turning
to innovation during the 2016 campaign that produced a schism between
the LNP organisation and the Prime Minister.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">In the last two weeks of that 2016 campaign, the LNP “went rogue’’ and ignored campaign headquarters.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">But
since the narrow victory, the Turnbull government’s popularity has
plummeted in Queensland. Over April and June, Newspoll showed support in
the primary vote for the Turnbull government had sunk from 43.2 per
cent at the 2016 election to 36 per cent; the lowest level in any state.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">If
Dutton challenges and wins, he will become the first conservative prime
minister from Queensland since Arthur Fadden’s short-lived tenure in
late 1941.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">The 17-year veteran, who
completed a business degree after leaving the police force in 1999, was
last night staring down new claims that were already muddying the waters
of his mooted challenge before it began.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">Constitutional
law expert Anne Twomey reportedly suggested Dutton’s ongoing interests
in two Brisbane childcare centres that receive commonwealth subsidies
could make him ineligible to serve in parliament.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">Dutton became involved in developing childcare centres with his father, a builder, before entering politics.</p><p class="gmail-selectionShareable">But Dutton’s office last night said he had legal advice that he was not in breach of the Constitution.</p>
<br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>