Dominic Perrottet Is Officially NSW’s New Premier So Here’s Everything You Need To Know
Deeply conservative and opposed to same-sex marriage, Trump-supporter Perrottet's track record is highly questionable.
New South Wales Treasurer Dominic Perrottet is set to replace Gladys Berejiklian and become the state’s 46th premier.
Following an official vote on Tuesday morning, Perrottet has been confirmed as the new leader of the NSW Liberal Party, and the Premier of New South Wales following the shock departure of Gladys Berejiklian last week. So, on account of the fact that he will soon be running Australia’s most populous state, let’s get acquainted with him, shall we?
Who Is Dominic Perrottet?
Perrottet is a 39-year-old father-of-six and a member of the conservative right faction of the New South Wales Liberal Party. He is also the youngest politician ever to serve as Premier of New South Wales. But while his age is young, many of his political beliefs are extremely outdated.
According to the Australian Financial Review’s Aaron Patrick, he is the “great hope in Australia for political conservatives.”
“The really interesting thing about Dominic Perrottet is he’s a conservative, and he’s a proud conservative,” Patrick told Sky News.“This is a man who believes in family, believes in traditional values, and believes in small government.”
He is also a devout traditional Catholic and has spoken openly about how his religious beliefs have fundamentally influenced his political work.
“I think having a Christian faith is part of who I am and inspires me to make a difference wherever I go,” he said in 2020.
Prior to landing the top job in New South Wales, Perrottet served as the Treasurer and Deputy Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party. Previously, he has also served as Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Finance, Services and Property. Oh, and he was backed by former PM John Howard, who reckons he’s the “best person” for the job, which truly just says it all.
What Does He Stand For?
As a member of the conservative right faction of the Liberals, it’s hardly surprising that Perrottet votes, well, conservatively. On the day Trump won the election in 2016, Perrottet asserted, among other things, that it is time for “a conservative spring.”
Source: Dominic Perrottet Facebook
Perrottet has a long and controversial history. He has dubbed gender-neutral language the “pronoun police” and asserted that anyone who believes women should have a right to an abortion are on the “wrong side of history.”
“I’ll be making sure people in the Treasury are free to call their spouse whatever they like,” he told Sky News when discussing gender pronouns in office last year. “Wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, honey, babe, whatever — as long as we’re focused where it should be.”
Not to mention, he is fiercely opposed to marriage equality, claiming in 2017 that “marriage is about every child’s fundamental right to grow up with their own mum and dad”.
The incoming Premier also warned that we should stop “throwing money” at the welfare payments supporting Australia’s most vulnerable people because it allegedly contributes to rising divorce rates and single parent families, seemingly ignoring the issue of financial abuse that often keeps women in unsafe relationships because they quite literally cannot afford to escape.
Perhaps most controversially, he vocally opposed a bill that would require priests to disclose child sexual abuse because “the confessional seal is a sacrosanct no matter what sins are confessed.”
“Now I understand the motivation and the rationale for this legislation, as I’m sure everyone here does. As a Catholic I find a sexual abuse and subsequent cover-ups that have gone on in the church, a crushing betrayal, not only of the victims, but of believers too,’’ Perrottet said at the time.
“We all share in the responsibility to combat the plague of sexual abuse of children and minors and make sure it never happens again. At the same time though, we need to be clear about what this kind of law does, it compels at the threat of imprisonment, ministers of religion to violate their conscience, in a way that is so grave that will result in their summary expulsion from the church. That isn’t just a matter of preference. It’s a matter of deep theological conviction that the confessional seal is sacrosanct, for every priest in every penitent, no matter who, no matter what sins are confessed.”
Not to mention, he was the man behind the iCare program, which cost NSW more than $3 billion, despite leaving thousands of injured workers without compensation. “A cowboy culture took root in iCare, and it led to a public disaster which small business and injured workers are paying for. This disaster was overseen by the Treasurer from day one,” the NSW Opposition’s Finance and Small Business spokesman, Daniel Mookhey told the ABC.
“The reason why iCare’s culture has been so poor is because iCare’s management team acted like kings, the board failed to hold them to account and the Treasurer cheered them on at every single opportunity.”
Unfortunately, due to the resignations of both John Barilaro and Andrew Constance, Perrottet didn’t really have much competition. When it came down to it, it was always going to be Perrottet or Planning Minister Rob Stokes, who was ultimately out-voted.