Peter Dutton Has Made Racism An Issue This Election – And It’s Backfiring Badly

I don’t want to call it too early, but something amazing might be happening. Peter Dutton might just be the hero we didn’t know we needed.

Between the failed Border Force raid, the jokes about Pacific Nations drowning, the references to refugees and migrants as illiterate slouchers stealing Australian jobs while simultaneously taking up space in Centrelink queues or his dictator-like management of offshore gulags detention centres, Australia might have hit its threshold. The Immigration Minister’s continued presence on the front bench may have, slowly but surely, turned racism into an election issue.

You see, somebody forgot to do the electoral math before sending Dutton to collect fringe voters and leftover Hansonites, because it turns out the five key marginal seats that could determine the outcome of the election are also seats which rank high on the multicultural index.

A significant proportion of residents in the marginal seats of Bennelong, Barton, Hotham, Reid and Banks, were born overseas and have English as a second language. They presumably don’t take kindly to textbook stereotypes and social policies more akin to dictatorships than a democratic society. They’ve seen what it can lead to. Most also descended from areas of Europe, the Middle East and Asia that were impacted by World War II. They have experienced first-hand, or have family members that have witnessed the outcome of war and race-related policy. 

And with Newspoll putting the numbers separating Liberal from Labor at 51-49,  the demographics of Australia might finally make racism a liability this election.

With the writing on the wall, and more than a week after the Prime Minister had referred to Dutton as “outstanding”, the party is finally starting to back away. It sent Minister for Trade and Investment Steve Ciobo onto Sky News for the old non-apology apology. He explained that Peter Dutton didn’t say anything offensive, it’s that the Australian public simply “misunderstood” his intent.

These five key seats, along with the yoof of Australia, could be more than enough to change the political direction of this country. As Junkee’s Alex McKinnon pointed out, in 2013 just 176,000 votes separated Labor from the Liberals. In 2010, it was 30,000. Those 400,000 young Australians who haven’t enrolled to vote yet could have a huge impact on the outcome of this election. Joining forces with the country’s cultural communities could result in a landslide loss for the government.

Now is it too much to ask for an opposition party with substantially different border protection and immigration policies?

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Feature image via Peter Dutton/Facebook.

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Claire Connelly is an award-winning freelance writer, journalist and consultant. She writes for The Australian Financial Review, SBS, The Australian, The Age, specialising in finance, technology, economics and policy. She tweets here.