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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has rejected Finance Minister Jim Chalmers’ description of him as “divisive” and “dangerous”, saying the description merely distracted from Labor’s economic failures.
At the annual John Curtin Oration on Monday night, Chalmers accused Dutton of starting culture wars and called him the most divisive leader in modern Australian history.
Chalmers reiterated his comments on Tuesday morning when he warned voters that the opposition leader was deliberately “stoking” and “exploiting” divisions rather than seeking to heal the country.
“[Peter Dutton] is the most divisive political leader I have ever seen in my life. And this is a conscious choice on his part, it is not an accident,” he said on ABC Radio National’s program on Tuesday.
“He is deliberately divisive, almost pathologically. And that kind of division in our leadership, in our society, is worse than disappointing — it is dangerous.”
Chalmers’ comments follow Dutton repeatedly called for no visas from Gaza until security checks could be guaranteed.
According to Dutton, there was no evidence to support Chalmers’ claim.
“There’s nothing he can point to. Except the fact that he wants to talk about everything except his failure in the economy. If things were going so well for Australians and the economy was going as well as Jim Chalmers claims, why is he dedicating his speech to me?” Dutton told reporters on Tuesday.
“It seems that if you look at the Labor Party, Tony Burke is saying, look at me… and now Jim Chalmers is saying, look at me.”
The Liberal Party leader said there were internal divisions within the Labor Party, despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese agreeing Dutton was “divided” and always looking for the negative when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday.
Chalmers argued that Dutton’s rhetoric was “dangerous” and made him unfit to lead the country.
“I think it should be a disqualification when it comes to leading a big country like ours.”
