MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton is a former police detective who gained a reputation during his years in government for his tough stance on border security and as a vocal critic of China.
During his party’s three years out of power, Dutton has evolved into a less confrontational and more responsive political leader, said Monash University political expert Zareh Ghazarian.
“He presented himself as a tough leader. But the more he’s spent time in opposition, the more he has built his leadership repertoire,” Ghazarian said.
Dutton has signaled that his international priorities would differ from those of recent prime ministers if his party wins elections. Australian prime ministers are expected to make their first overseas trips to Asia, usually heading to Indonesia to underscore the importance of that bilateral relationship with a near neighbor.
Dutton said this month he planned to go first to the United States to meet President Donald Trump and secure preferential trade terms.
“I do believe that if there’s a change of government, I will be able to work with the Trump administration Mark 2 to get better outcomes for Australians,” Dutton told the Lowy Institute international policy think tank in Sydney.
Conflict with China
Dutton received a rebuke from Beijing in 2019 when he attacked the Chinese Communist Party in a speech with accusations of directing cyberattacks, stealing intellectual property and suppressing free speech.
“We categorically reject Mr. Dutton’s irrational accusations against China, which are shocking and baseless,” the Chinese Embassy in Australia said in a statement.
China-Australia relations have improved since current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government was elected in 2022. China has lifted a series of official and unofficial trade barriers that cost Australian exporters 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year in the final years of the previous conservative government. Beijing also lifted a ban on minister-to-minister contacts.
‘We will cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest,” Albanese often says of his administration’s relationship with Beijing.
But Dutton says he would improve Australia’s relations with Beijing even further with a tough and uncompromising approach.
“I don’t believe that Pesident Xi (Jinping) with the strength of his leadership respects a weak and incompetent Australian prime minister,” Dutton said.
Dutton has accused Albanese of “self-censorship” in dealing with China. He described Albanese’s reaction to three Chinese warhsips virtually circumnavitaging Australia in February in a show of China’s military reach as the “weakest, most limp-wristed response you could see from a leader.”
Australia complained the Chinese gave insufficient notice of live-fire exercises off the Australian coast that forced commercial airline flights between Sydney and New Zealand to divert.
Beijing responded that Australia had made “unreasonable accusations” and said the naval exercise had complied with international law.
Record in government
The 54-year-old belongs to the most conservative faction of his conservative Liberal Party. Since he was first elected to the Federal Parliament in 2001, he has held several ministerial roles including the key security portfolios of defense and home affairs, in which he established a public image as an uncompromising and confrontational politician.
As minister for immigration and border protection from 2014, Dutton oversaw Operation Sovereign Borders, a military-run blockade of Australia’s northern ocean approaches that largely ended the trafficking of asylum seekers by people smugglers in dilapidated fishing boats.
Australia has been accused of shirking its obligation to resettle such refugees by sending boat arrivals to Australian-funded immigration camps on the poor island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Dutton has said is political outlook is shaped by almost a decade working in the Queensland state police force, which he joined at 19. He worked in the drug and sexual crime squads.
“I think it’s a bit of a police trait and it’s dealing with a problem that’s before you and then moving on to the next one and trying to deal with it efficiently,” Dutton told a TV profile in 2023.
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