Dutton hits back at ‘smears’ over his personal fortune
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has hit back at what the Coalition says is a “smear campaign’” about his personal share and property portfolio.
It comes after stories in the Nine newspapers on Wednesday that Dutton had conducted $30 million of property transactions across 26 pieces of real estate over 35 years.
Dutton said on Wednesday he had been transparent about his family’s property assets, and there was “nothing consequential” in any delays in reporting.
“They’ve trawled through every transaction of my life for my entire adult life and they’ve come up with the fact that we’ve bought and sold properties,” he said.
He was also asked about reports he bought bank shares during the great financial crisis, while they were at record lows ahead of a $4 billion Rudd government bailout. Labor has asked what Dutton knew before he purchased the shares.
But Dutton said he had invested since his late teens and that any smart investor “would have bought bank shares at that time”.
You might like
He dismissed the accusations as a vendetta from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office.
“The Prime Minister’s office is shopping around dirt sheets at the moment – transactions that go back to when I was 20 years of age, I’ve conducted myself with integrity at every moment of my life, including as a police officer and since I’ve been in politics,” he said.
“If the Prime Minister has some claim to make, don’t get his lackeys to push it out there, get up and make the claim yourself. But, of course, the Prime Minister won’t; he’s happy to use third parties to shop around this sort of detail.”
He also said he’d held back from criticising Albanese in stories about his property assets or his family.
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s off limits,” he said.
“I think the Prime Minister is a person of integrity, as I am, and he’s done well. He tells a story of growing up in housing commission and he’s now a multimillionaire with property. Good luck to him.”
Stay informed, daily
Albanese recently faced questions about his purchase with fiancee Jodie Haydon of a $4.3 million home on the NSW Central Coast, and his decision to evict a tenant so he could sell a rental property in inner-Sydney.
He repeatedly refused to comment on the Dutton controversy on Wednesday, saying only “it’s a matter for him”.
On the 2009 share purchase, Dutton said he wouldn’t review “ancient history” when asked about releasing shadow cabinet minutes from the time. He said he’d have to check if he was on the shadow expenditure review committee when he bought the shares.
“It’s 15 years ago,” he said.
“There’s no information I’ve been privy to that influenced any decision about any share that I’ve bought. I’ve conducted myself with integrity. Why would I be declaring every detail if there was something to be hidden?
“It’s nonsense.”
There was also a fiery TV exchange about the Dutton allegations on Wednesday. Coalition frontbencher Jane Hume lashed Employment Minister Murray Watt as a “grub” and said it was a “smear campaign from a desperate government”.
“All Labor know how to do … they are the grubbiest people,” Hume told the Seven Network on Wednesday.
“Murray, you are the king grub.”
Watt, who has led Labor’s questions about the share purchase, said there were questions for Dutton to answer.
“Jane is obviously very defensive about this story,” he said.
“How many shares did he trade? Miraculously, the day before the government of the time bailed out the banks? How much profit did he make on those share trades?
“Most importantly, was he aware that the government was about to bail out the banks when he made the share trades?”
