Last Night’s ‘Q&A’ Was Just A Bunch Of People Slagging Off Peter Dutton
One panellist said the idea of Prime Minister Dutton "filled her with terror", and honestly, same here.
Author Maxine Beneba Clarke told Monday night’s Q&A audience that the idea of Peter Dutton becoming Prime Minister “fills me with terror”. And honestly, Maxine, same.
On Tuesday morning, Dutton resigned as Home Affairs Minister after unsuccessfully challenging Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party. But the prospect of Dutton becoming PM in the coming weeks is still extremely, horrifyingly possible.
We’re talking, of course, about the same Peter Dutton who regularly vilifies refugees, attacked business owners for supporting marriage equality, boycotted the apology to the Stolen Generations, and insisted Melburnians were so petrified of Sudanese people that they won’t go out to restaurants any more.
Unsurprisingly, the thought of him becoming Head Boy of Australia generated some pretty strong opinions from a Q&A panel made up entirely of authors.
“Two years ago, [Peter Dutton] made comments about Lebanese-Australian Muslims, specifically second-generation Lebanese-Australian Muslims,” said Michael Mohammed Ahmad, author of The Lebs. “He said that we were a mistake, that it was a mistake of the Fraser government to let our parents into this country. And I have to say that when I heard those comments, it was the first time that I probably felt extremely proud to call myself a Lebanese-Australian Muslim.”
“I would prefer to wake up every morning knowing I’m a mistake, and doing everything I can to make this country the best place it can be, than to be brought into this word intentionally, and to mean nothing but to cause havoc and trouble and bigotry.”
Fcking love Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s honesty. #qanda
— Julien Benda (@canthavepudding) August 20, 2018
“Yeah, the idea of a Dutton PM just fills me with terror,” said Beneba Clarke, author of The Hate Race. “You hope that the person who becomes Prime Minister is a big enough person that they can be bipartisan on the issues that matter, and that the people who haven’t voted for them will still see them as some kind of a representation of themselves… Dutton certainly is not that person.”
“I can’t get my head around Dutton at the moment as PM,” added Sofie Laguna, author of The Choke. “But I said the same thing about Trump.”
Is dog-whistle politics becoming a more successful tactic in Australian politics? Michael Mohammed Ahmad @TrentDalton & @slamup respond#QandA pic.twitter.com/h7cLjEr7G6
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) August 20, 2018
It should be pointed out that just because Dutton lost today doesn’t mean he’s gone for good, or that Turnbull isn’t still in very serious trouble. For more coverage of what the fuck is happening in Canberra today, go here.