Treasurer Says Opposition Using ‘Division’ as Political Tactic

Treasurer of Australia Jim Chalmers MP during post budget media interviews at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on May 15, 2024. Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has used an address to the Labor Party think tank to claim Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is deliberately using division as a political tactic.

Delivering the 2024 John Curtin Oration—which celebrates the former prime minister who led Labor to a landslide victory in 1943—Chalmers took aim at Dutton’s leadership.

“Leadership can help us become an island of decency and opportunity in a sea of uncertainty and division, but leadership which is destructive, and divisive, is not really leadership at all,” he said at the Aug. 26 event.

“And that’s what we are seeing from Peter Dutton.

“He is the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia’s modern history—and not by accident, by choice.”

Chalmers’ criticism of the Liberal Party leader only got more intense from there, accusing the leader of revelling in deliberate division.

“It is the only plank in his political platform,” he said at the Melbourne event.

“He divides deliberately, almost pathologically.”

Liberals Respond to Claims

Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley responded to the claim, accusing Labor itself of engaging in division.

“Divisive is to unleash The Voice, spend $500 million, and then say that if you vote ‘no,’ you’re a bad person—that’s divisive,” she told Sky News.

Ley said the treasurer was trying to “talk tough” in front of Labor colleagues.

Dutton has faced criticism from left-leaning politicians for his stance on pausing arrivals from Gaza to Australia.

The opposition leader has questioned why Prime Minister Anthony Albanese granted almost 3,000 visas to those from Hamas-controlled Gaza amid fears of in adequate security checks.

“In some instances, this is more than 10 times the number of visas that our closest and most like-minded security partners and allies have granted,” Dutton wrote on social media.

“Anthony Albanese must urgently explain why Australia has taken a more lenient approach to vetting visa applicants and the failure to conduct thorough security checks.”

Last week, Dutton released a chart showing that, in comparison, the United States had approved only 17 visas from Gaza, New Zealand 153, and the UK 168.

Majority Back Dutton

Chalmers’ comments on Dutton come as a Guardian Australia poll of 1,129 voters showed 44 percent of people agreed with the opposition’s calls for a pause on visas for Gazans.

According to the news outlet’s Essential poll, 30 percent of people opposed Dutton’s take on the issue, while 26 percent said they were undecided.

The poll also revealed 52 percent of Australians believe the nation is going down the wrong track and that Albanese’s approval rating had slipped with 40 percent of voters backing the leader.

Results also showed 42 percent of people supported Dutton’s leadership.

Based on current polling, Griffith University political expert Paul Williams believes Labor will retain power at the next election, but will lose seats and be forced to form a minority government.

“The cost of living will damage Albo in May,” he told The Epoch Times.