February 27, 2025 • 22 mins
Remember Anthony Albanese’s Copacabana house drama? The PM was dragged in the media for buying a 4.3 million dollar home on the NSW central coast in the middle of a cost of living crisis.
Well now the opposition leader is facing a few questions of his own. This week, our national affairs editor James Massola has done a bit of digging, and has revealed Peter Dutton’s extensive, and rich, history of property dealings.
At the same time, News Corp has published allegations about Dutton’s share trading in the middle of the global financial crisis. Aside from denying he’s done anything dodgy, he’s also argued that the information is the work of Labor’s “dirt unit”.
Today, our intrepid reporter James Massola joins us to talk through these stories, and delves into this mysterious “dirt unit”.
Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:00):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Paul chuckle filling in for
Jacqueline Maley. And it's Friday, February 28th. Remember Anthony Albanese's
Copacabana House drama the PM was dragged in the media
for buying a $4.3 million home on the New South
Wales Central Coast, in the middle of a cost of
living crisis. Not a good look. Well, now the opposition
(00:23):
leader is facing questions of his own. This week, a
national affairs editor, James Massola, has done a bit of
dig in, and he's revealed Peter Dutton's extensive and rich
history of property dealings. At the same time, News Corp
has published allegations about Dutton's share trading in the middle
of the global financial crisis. Aside from denying he's done
anything dodgy, the opposition leader has also argued that the
(00:45):
information has come from Labor's so-called dirt unit. Today, our
intrepid reporter James Massola joins us to talk through these
stories and delves into this mysterious dirt unit. James, how
are you?
S2 (00:59):
I'm well, Paul, thanks for the introduction.
S1 (01:01):
Now we we don't like when you get too big
a head for breaking a big story, but unfortunately, this
whole podcast is this is your podcast. Keen to talk
about the information that you've put into the public domain
this week and set the agenda for the news week
week before an election campaign, possibly so an important week
to set the agenda. Give us a bit of the
background before we get into the nitty gritty. Why did
(01:23):
you start looking into Peter Dutton's property portfolio? When did
you do it?
S2 (01:26):
Look, the why is pretty simple. Paul. As listeners would recall,
last year the PM was under a heck of a
lot of scrutiny after perhaps unwisely purchasing a $4.3 million
beach house in Copacabana on the New South Wales Central Coast.
Colleagues were questioning his judgment and the timing. And in
the middle of a cost of living crisis, what is
(01:47):
he thinking? Yada yada yada. And I thought, well, as
we get closer and closer to the election, there's a
kind of role for the Fourth Estate for the media
to play in. Holding all politicians, particularly, would be alternative
prime ministers up to scrutiny. And I had a bit
of time, so I started on a couple of projects.
One was looking into Peter Dutton's property and houses. He's
(02:08):
all politicians have a register of members interests. They declare,
you know, their shares and their homes and what have you.
His was particularly rich, I thought. And then the further
I went, you know, the deeper into it I went,
you know, the further back I went. And I just
kept finding, I thought pretty interesting things. What did you.
S1 (02:23):
Find? What are your main takeouts.
S2 (02:24):
Okay. So it's pretty well known that Peter Dutton's owned
a few properties over the years. You know, it's a
matter of public record. From his register at peak, I
believe it was five. What I worked out by going
back through ASIC records, that is, company records through real
estate websites, um, through land title searches, things like that.
(02:46):
And also, of course, the register is that he's owned
26 properties over the course of his life, bought and
sold 26 over the course of his life since he
was 19 years old. The total value of those is
about $30 million in terms of transaction value.
S3 (03:00):
With an election looming, the political temperature is starting to
rise as Labour accuses Peter Dutton of hiding assets in
a private trust.
S4 (03:09):
The government is collapsing and they're throwing dirt from 1516
years ago. Why not have raised these issues before?
S2 (03:16):
The total outlay was $12 million. The total sale prices
have been around $18.8 million. Now that's you know, that's
a $6.8 million difference. That's a big difference. Not all
of that is profit. Of course there's taxes and stamp
duty and what have you that he would have paid.
But he's had a pretty successful career as a property developer,
starting out with his dad. Over the last three and
(03:37):
a half decades. And I thought that was interesting. And
of course, he's also been a strident defender of negative
gearing tax, you know, remaining the tax system remaining as
it is. Same with capital gains.
S1 (03:48):
And James, why is that relevant that he's a supporter
politically of property tax breaks.
S2 (03:55):
Well pretty simple. I mean if you're an investor, if
you own 3 or 4 properties, if you're the rent
you're being paid is less than the mortgage payments you
have to make. The difference in those monies, let's say
you're getting $24,000 a year in rent, and your mortgage
is costing you 35. That $11,000 difference is your gap,
and that's an $11,000 tax deduction, for example. Now, if
(04:17):
you do that over three or 4 or 5 properties
as a tax break, that suddenly gets to be quite lucrative.
S1 (04:25):
Basically, the Parliament's full of property investors. Every time one
of these stories is written about how many properties Hmps owns,
it's clear that the median property ownership in this place
where we're sitting today on this Thursday is much higher
than the public average. Greens and Labour MPs as well,
and Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd were both far, far wealthier.
(04:45):
So why does Dutton's property ownership matter at all? Australians
are very into property investment. Many see it as a virtue.
Who cares?
S2 (04:52):
I don't think there's anything wrong with Peter Dutton investing
in property. Working hard. He clearly has worked very hard
for a long time making money from it. I mean,
he's availing himself of the breaks or advantages that the
tax system offers. Why I think this story was worth
writing is that we didn't know a lot of this
(05:13):
about the alternative PM. There's a lot of things that
we don't know about the alternative. PM he's quite a
private man, you know, and I think in the lead
up to the election in particular, is the point or
the time at which you must, as a journalist, stress
test the alternative PM and, you know, look into his past.
And are there any skeletons in the closet? Who is
(05:35):
this guy? I mean, for example, in the story, Paul, um,
I mentioned that Mr. Dutton had owned two properties with
a woman named Susan Britton. Now, she's never been named publicly.
That's Peter Dutton, as far as I can tell. That's
Peter Dutton's first wife. They were married for about six months.
By the looks of it. They were together for a
few years now. Again, there's no great scandal there. There's
(05:56):
no scandal there at all, really, but it's information that
hasn't been in the public domain. Another example of that,
Peter Dutton has, I believe it's four brothers and sisters.
As far as I can tell. They've never been named anywhere.
They've never appeared in a photo with him, and that's fine.
You know, they probably just private people. But I think,
you know, when you get to that moment of choice,
(06:17):
as we're soon to get to, people want to know
about who the person who is, who is going to
be or is putting themselves forward to be the PM
of this country.
S1 (06:26):
And James, there was another story this week that was
broken by news.com.au journalist steam journalist Samantha maiden that detailed
accusations about Dutton's share trading. The day before labor announced
a bank bailout in 2009 during the GFC. I should
say they were recorded on the register on that day,
(06:46):
but we don't actually know the day that the trades
were done. What's that all about that story?
S2 (06:52):
Okay, so the allegation from labor and, you know, Andrew Charlton,
the labor backbencher, was on the 7.30 program on Wednesday night.
S5 (07:00):
Now you were an adviser to the Rudd Government during
the global financial crisis. First of all, your reaction when
you when you learnt that Peter Dutton had bought and
sold bank shares during the crisis?
S6 (07:12):
My jaw fell to the floor. Why is that? At
a time of national crisis when every Australian leader was
focused on the national interest. He was focused on making money.
He was focused on his own interests and he in.
S2 (07:26):
Fact said, you know, this information about the share trading
and the which has prompted the questions about the timing
had actually been worked out by labor or researched by labor,
and had been sort of pushed around, if you like,
or shopped around for a while leading up to the
publication of that story.
S5 (07:44):
What you're saying is the government had access to this information,
was in possession of that. Anthony Albanese was in possession
of this information before. It was before it appeared in
the media.
S6 (07:55):
Absolutely. I mean, it is the government's job at a
time when we're all looking at register of members interests
to look at this information.
S1 (08:02):
What was he doing? Andrew Charlton, why did he. Why?
Why the hell did he admit that he learnt this
information from the Prime Minister's office? Surely they all just
would have had their own jaws on the floor. As
he said a number of times in that interview.
S2 (08:12):
Yeah, it wasn't the greatest interview, I have to say, Paul,
was it? He went out there to try and frame
Peter Dutton and ended up framing himself.
S5 (08:20):
If it was of such enormous ethical importance as you suggest,
why not release it that day? Why save it up?
S6 (08:26):
I'm not sure it was saved up at all. I
think it was released promptly.
S5 (08:30):
Well, how? How promptly? When did you become aware of it?
S6 (08:32):
Reasonably shortly before it was.
S2 (08:34):
Look, putting aside that awkward interview what you know, as
you touched on what his central point was, is that
Dutton had potentially received inside information about the bank guarantee
coming through from the Rudd government and had sort of
enriched himself, bought shares in banks when they were at
a low ebb a day before the bank guarantee comes
through and pushes the share prices up. Now, as you say,
(08:56):
there are problems with that theory or allegation because he
may have bought them 30 days before MPs get 30
days to declare he may have bought them 60 days
before and was declaring it late. We don't actually know now.
It is correct that Peter Dutton could find the exact
dates and release those dates. It would be great to
see that it if it you know, if it was
around the time of the bank guarantee. It's not a
(09:18):
great look, but conversely, it's also not silly of Dutton
to have been purchasing, you know, bank shares, the big
four in particular.
S1 (09:25):
Um, at a low ebb.
S2 (09:26):
Yeah. I mean, that's you know, you could argue that's
just a smart investment strategy. Indeed. That's what he's saying.
It's just a smart investment strategy. I'm sure other people
did that. So on and so forth.
S1 (09:35):
Quite a few Labour MPs have put on social media
this week. Just jokes about the the opposition leader's wealth.
And it strikes me that Labour is trying to change
the narrative about his background. He's the kind of only
well-known public narrative about Dutton, I'd say, is that he's
he's a tough arse, that he was a former cop,
that he was a Home affairs and immigration minister, and
his tough on crime, tough on national security. And there's
(09:58):
a suburban authenticity there, I think, in the mix. Do
you think that labor could have any success in using
this information about his property holdings, but also his share
trading to do anything to dent that perception of Peter Dutton?
Or is it is that perception too baked into the
public consciousness to actually shift? Look, it.
S2 (10:20):
May be too well baked in, as you say, but
I think I mean, to your exact point, what labor
is trying to do is reshape public perceptions to round
the man out at a minimum and say, actually, here
are some other things that you did not know in
terms of this share story. And I guess to some extent,
maybe my story performed that function as well. Peter Dutton
(10:43):
has sort of, throughout his career, and particularly since becoming
opposition leader, really painted himself as a kind of everyman,
a knockabout bloke, a Queenslander, a former cop who's worked hard,
you know, wife and three kids, really kind of a
suburban bloke, if you like Mr. Average. Nothing like Malcolm Turnbull,
for example, who's seen as a bit of a, you know,
(11:03):
the archetypal or stereotypical wealthy liberal and not from that
kind of background of, you know, at least schooling sort
of privilege and what have you. That Tony Abbott, for example,
was from. Now, what these stories about his wealth do is,
I think, to some extent function as a bit of
a Rorschach test for voters. Like, here's the idea is
(11:26):
here's some more information. You didn't know this, this and
this about him. And, you know, people can kind of
decide for themselves, is he this knockabout bloke or is
he this wealthy property investor? You know, is he is
he to be admired for working from the age of
19 and buying properties, or has he had, you know,
help from daddy? I say that in inverted commas to
get ahead. Um, you know, these are questions, I guess
(11:48):
worth considering.
S1 (11:49):
Yeah. So tell us what Dutton is said to in
response to both of these stories, really because he held
a press conference on Wednesday.
S2 (11:55):
Yeah. So he's done that kind of classic deflection thing
where he's, you know, framed it as labour dirt. It's
not therefore valid information or worth reporting.
S4 (12:03):
Now 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.
S2 (12:16):
I do think both stories were worth reporting. You know,
mine was not in any way connected to the Labor Party.
I do my own research, but he he kind of
pushed back. He said, look, does the PM, you know,
does labor oppose people having aspiration? Does it oppose people
working hard and building houses and building their wealth over time?
S4 (12:35):
I'm proud of what we achieved. I didn't grow up
with a silver spoon in my mouth. My parents worked hard.
They instilled in us a couple of things.
S2 (12:44):
And similarly with probably more specifically and more sharply with
the shares story, he's just argued, it's sort of a
it's a what a 15, 16 year old beat up,
you know, from Labor's dirt unit and don't pay any
attention to it.
S1 (12:57):
Just on this share issue, I was talking to someone
who was involved in the in the story from on
the labor side on Wednesday night, who suggested that this
story probably won't have legs and won't kick into the
election campaign unless there's some smoking gun or new piece
of information that puts more pressure on Dutton to explain
whether he may have had inside information, which he denies. James,
(13:19):
is there any potential for an inquiry here or any
further questions being asked in different creative ways? Is this
story going to stay in the news?
S2 (13:27):
Look, I think the smoking gun point is the correct one.
At this point. We don't know if there is a
smoking gun. We don't know if there will be more
information coming out. I think this idea of releasing the
minutes from the shadow cabinet or the shadow work from
15 years ago, is a bit far fetched. If there
was going to be an investigation in the first instance,
it would be the Privileges Committee, which kind of oversees
(13:48):
MPs declaration on the Register of Members interests. But to
be honest, they don't have a lot of power now.
The other thing I'd like to sort of say, in
defence of Peter Dutton, if you like, is it wasn't
a state secret that the Rudd government, I was here
in Parliament House at the time that the Rudd government
was looking at doing a bank guarantee. You know, other
countries around were doing it. It was widely canvassed in
(14:09):
the news. It was easily forecastable that such a guarantee
would strengthen the position of the banks and therefore strengthen
the position of their share price. So I don't think,
you know.
S1 (14:21):
It's unlikely to be the case that there was a
special briefing in which a very unique, unexpected piece of
information was given to members of the opposition. That was
not something that was broadly known around that period of time.
S2 (14:34):
Exactly. I mean, there were briefings at the time. I
know that Malcolm Turnbull, as the opposition leader at the time,
was getting briefings. I'm sure he would have talked to
his colleagues. At that time, Dutton had switched from being
shadow finance to shadow health minister. So he made, you know,
in theory, you'd think he wasn't getting that briefing as
a as a non-economic portfolio holding shadow minister. But, you know,
(14:54):
the information would have filtered out. The point for me, though,
is that it was I mean, this was being discussed
on the front pages of newspapers.
S1 (15:00):
Still, maybe not the best look to be doing anything
at a time when, you know, we're going through a
financial crisis to enrich oneself. If you're in politics and
have high ambition, as he had. James tells Peter Dutton
(15:23):
in his press conference on Wednesday, was very quick to
jump into the common politician refrain of information that is
damaging being dug up by an opposition dirt unit. This
is a real Canberra insider point of intrigue. Dirt units.
What are dirt units? Do they exist? What is the
relationship of any such dirt unit to their stories this week?
S2 (15:45):
Yeah. Look, first of all, no political party is ever
going to admit to having a dirt unit. But they
all have. Let's call them research units. They've been around
for decades towards the end of the Fraser government. They
had people in every capital city sort of monitoring the radio.
Hawke and Keating come in. They set up the National
Media Liaison Service, which comes to be known as the animals.
(16:07):
You can kind of see the MLS in the word,
and they were famously kind of cowboys and would dig up,
you know, bits of informative information on the then opposition coalition. Um,
you know, they go on and on and on. The
Howard government had the government members Secretariat, which was run
(16:28):
by a legendary kind of former spinner, a guy called
Ian Hankey, I believe. And then on through, you know,
the Rudd and Gillard governments, they had the caucus support
and training unit through to today. So they do have
these research teams. They do dig up publicly information. You know,
they might do something like compile a set of quotes
that show, um, for example, Sussan Ley and Jane Hume
(16:50):
contradicting each other on something, or Chris Bowen and Tony
Burke being at variance and disagreeing and saying, look, you know,
the government's divided or the opposition is divided, they go
through and look at share trades like we've seen this week.
They go through look at property records. Some of them
are better than others. Bill shorten, when he was opposition leader,
had a legendary research, let's call it team. So it's
(17:13):
not unusual. You know, both all sides of politics are
always looking for any advantage that would kind of give
them an edge over their opponent.
S1 (17:21):
My understanding is the in the early part of this government,
you maybe know better than me, James, but there was
no research unit for a period of the start of
this term under labor. I think there was a view
inside the Prime Minister's office that wasn't the right way
to engage in a new government. There was not a
need for it. I think that changed about halfway through.
And there now is a unit that includes a couple
of staffers from the PMO, but also some media staffers
(17:43):
from different offices, some of the more shrewd political officers.
Does it actually matter where the information came from and
how it came into the public domain?
S2 (17:52):
It matters in the sense that confirmation of where it
has come from allows Dutton to push it away, you know,
to put it at an arm's length and say, that's
just come from labor, that's just a base political attack,
you know, Don't believe it. Disregard it. It's not not
not that it's not credible, but it's just it's not
worth answering. It's not worth getting hung up over. If
you like.
S1 (18:12):
Helps his political argument, I should say. Journalists work with
the opposition all the time to find information out from
the government. They give us a lot of information. They
share info with us. This is not new, but, um,
any any implication, any invocation of a dirt unit is
helpful for the subject of the story, for sure. I mean.
S2 (18:30):
Journalists regularly work with senators, for example, during the Senate
estimates periods and say, you know, if you've got capacity,
this is a story I'm looking at. I can't get
an answer from the department. Can you please ask, you know,
the Deputy secretary of the Department of Transport when they're
up in infrastructure estimates, what is happening with the Suburban
Rail Link or whatever the story might be, it's pretty common.
S1 (18:51):
Yeah. And, James, it feels like this week feels like
a campaign week to me. I mean, the government started
with on the Sunday, a big election announcement on Medicare
wedged the opposition quickly into accepting it. Huge amount of
spending $8.5 billion, I think. And then they spent the
week attacking Peter Dutton. And it feels like there's been
a two party contest rather than the referendum on labor,
(19:12):
which was seen for much of the term. Is this
the start of an election campaign? When are we going
to call an election? Yeah, we're very.
S2 (19:17):
Much in the twilight of the 47th Parliament. I still
think the election is called on. I'm going to get
this wrong. I think it's March 9th. That's this Sunday.
And that would be an election that would be held
on April 12th. I could be wrong. Of course. It
could be this weekend. I think labor wants to get
a few more ducks in a row. You know, the
(19:37):
campaign headquarters are ready. The staff have been chosen. All
that stuff's in place. And then I think it's a
matter of, you know, when does the PM feel like
it's the most propitious time to call it? And. Yeah,
I mean, I think it's 2 or 3 weeks away.
There's two schools of thought in labor about that at
the moment. Some are sort of saying privately, oh, each
(19:57):
week is not quite as good as it should be,
and we're just slipping that little bit further behind in
the polls each time they come out. We need to
go now. Conversely, the view is we're starting to get
up some momentum. Things are starting to be a bit
harder for Peter Dutton and some to touch on something
you just mentioned, Paul. We are moving from that, that, that,
(20:18):
that phase where, you know, polling, for example, it's kind
of a referendum in my mind, more of a referendum on,
you know, how do you think the government's going? How
do you think the PM's going? And I think the
reason why we've seen the PM lose so much pain
is that over time, cost of living pressures have risen
and risen, and essentially they've marked the PM down because
(20:39):
he's the guy running the country, right? Moving into that
choice frame, that's where Labour hopes that they can peg
Peter Dutton back and kind of frame that question in
people's minds. Okay. We might as Labour have disappointed you
a bit, but we have done this, this and this.
And do you really want Peter Dutton to be the PM?
That's where they want to be. Now they may not
(21:00):
get there.
S1 (21:01):
I think the next set of polling posts, an interest
rate cut and post this week on Dutton will be
crucial for how people feel about the election campaign. I
think that's it from us. James, thanks for explaining how
you came about your story. Well done and thanks. Thanks
for joining us.
S2 (21:14):
Pleasure to be with one of Australia's foremost journalists, Paul Silly.
S1 (21:23):
Today's episode of Inside Politics was produced by Julia Carcasole
with technical assistance from Debbie Harrington. Tammy Mills is the
executive producer and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
Inside politics is a production of The Age and The
Sydney Morning Herald. If you enjoy the show and you
want more of our journalism, subscribe to our newspapers today.
It's the best way to support what we do. Search
(21:44):
the age or Smh.com.au forward slash, subscribe and sign up
for our Inside Politics newsletter to receive a comprehensive summary
of the day's most important news, analysis and insights in
your inbox every day. Links are in the show. Notes
I'm Paul Satchell, this is inside politics. Thanks for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Paul chuckle filling in for
Jacqueline Maley. And it's Friday, February 28th. Remember Anthony Albanese's
Copacabana House drama the PM was dragged in the media
for buying a $4.3 million home on the New South
Wales Central Coast, in the middle of a cost of
living crisis. Not a good look. Well, now the opposition
(00:23):
leader is facing questions of his own. This week, a
national affairs editor, James Massola, has done a bit of
dig in, and he's revealed Peter Dutton's extensive and rich
history of property dealings. At the same time, News Corp
has published allegations about Dutton's share trading in the middle
of the global financial crisis. Aside from denying he's done
anything dodgy, the opposition leader has also argued that the
(00:45):
information has come from Labor's so-called dirt unit. Today, our
intrepid reporter James Massola joins us to talk through these
stories and delves into this mysterious dirt unit. James, how
are you?
S2 (00:59):
I'm well, Paul, thanks for the introduction.
S1 (01:01):
Now we we don't like when you get too big
a head for breaking a big story, but unfortunately, this
whole podcast is this is your podcast. Keen to talk
about the information that you've put into the public domain
this week and set the agenda for the news week
week before an election campaign, possibly so an important week
to set the agenda. Give us a bit of the
background before we get into the nitty gritty. Why did
(01:23):
you start looking into Peter Dutton's property portfolio? When did
you do it?
S2 (01:26):
Look, the why is pretty simple. Paul. As listeners would recall,
last year the PM was under a heck of a
lot of scrutiny after perhaps unwisely purchasing a $4.3 million
beach house in Copacabana on the New South Wales Central Coast.
Colleagues were questioning his judgment and the timing. And in
the middle of a cost of living crisis, what is
(01:47):
he thinking? Yada yada yada. And I thought, well, as
we get closer and closer to the election, there's a
kind of role for the Fourth Estate for the media
to play in. Holding all politicians, particularly, would be alternative
prime ministers up to scrutiny. And I had a bit
of time, so I started on a couple of projects.
One was looking into Peter Dutton's property and houses. He's
(02:08):
all politicians have a register of members interests. They declare,
you know, their shares and their homes and what have you.
His was particularly rich, I thought. And then the further
I went, you know, the deeper into it I went,
you know, the further back I went. And I just
kept finding, I thought pretty interesting things. What did you.
S1 (02:23):
Find? What are your main takeouts.
S2 (02:24):
Okay. So it's pretty well known that Peter Dutton's owned
a few properties over the years. You know, it's a
matter of public record. From his register at peak, I
believe it was five. What I worked out by going
back through ASIC records, that is, company records through real
estate websites, um, through land title searches, things like that.
(02:46):
And also, of course, the register is that he's owned
26 properties over the course of his life, bought and
sold 26 over the course of his life since he
was 19 years old. The total value of those is
about $30 million in terms of transaction value.
S3 (03:00):
With an election looming, the political temperature is starting to
rise as Labour accuses Peter Dutton of hiding assets in
a private trust.
S4 (03:09):
The government is collapsing and they're throwing dirt from 1516
years ago. Why not have raised these issues before?
S2 (03:16):
The total outlay was $12 million. The total sale prices
have been around $18.8 million. Now that's you know, that's
a $6.8 million difference. That's a big difference. Not all
of that is profit. Of course there's taxes and stamp
duty and what have you that he would have paid.
But he's had a pretty successful career as a property developer,
starting out with his dad. Over the last three and
(03:37):
a half decades. And I thought that was interesting. And
of course, he's also been a strident defender of negative
gearing tax, you know, remaining the tax system remaining as
it is. Same with capital gains.
S1 (03:48):
And James, why is that relevant that he's a supporter
politically of property tax breaks.
S2 (03:55):
Well pretty simple. I mean if you're an investor, if
you own 3 or 4 properties, if you're the rent
you're being paid is less than the mortgage payments you
have to make. The difference in those monies, let's say
you're getting $24,000 a year in rent, and your mortgage
is costing you 35. That $11,000 difference is your gap,
and that's an $11,000 tax deduction, for example. Now, if
(04:17):
you do that over three or 4 or 5 properties
as a tax break, that suddenly gets to be quite lucrative.
S1 (04:25):
Basically, the Parliament's full of property investors. Every time one
of these stories is written about how many properties Hmps owns,
it's clear that the median property ownership in this place
where we're sitting today on this Thursday is much higher
than the public average. Greens and Labour MPs as well,
and Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd were both far, far wealthier.
(04:45):
So why does Dutton's property ownership matter at all? Australians
are very into property investment. Many see it as a virtue.
Who cares?
S2 (04:52):
I don't think there's anything wrong with Peter Dutton investing
in property. Working hard. He clearly has worked very hard
for a long time making money from it. I mean,
he's availing himself of the breaks or advantages that the
tax system offers. Why I think this story was worth
writing is that we didn't know a lot of this
(05:13):
about the alternative PM. There's a lot of things that
we don't know about the alternative. PM he's quite a
private man, you know, and I think in the lead
up to the election in particular, is the point or
the time at which you must, as a journalist, stress
test the alternative PM and, you know, look into his past.
And are there any skeletons in the closet? Who is
(05:35):
this guy? I mean, for example, in the story, Paul, um,
I mentioned that Mr. Dutton had owned two properties with
a woman named Susan Britton. Now, she's never been named publicly.
That's Peter Dutton, as far as I can tell. That's
Peter Dutton's first wife. They were married for about six months.
By the looks of it. They were together for a
few years now. Again, there's no great scandal there. There's
(05:56):
no scandal there at all, really, but it's information that
hasn't been in the public domain. Another example of that,
Peter Dutton has, I believe it's four brothers and sisters.
As far as I can tell. They've never been named anywhere.
They've never appeared in a photo with him, and that's fine.
You know, they probably just private people. But I think,
you know, when you get to that moment of choice,
(06:17):
as we're soon to get to, people want to know
about who the person who is, who is going to
be or is putting themselves forward to be the PM
of this country.
S1 (06:26):
And James, there was another story this week that was
broken by news.com.au journalist steam journalist Samantha maiden that detailed
accusations about Dutton's share trading. The day before labor announced
a bank bailout in 2009 during the GFC. I should
say they were recorded on the register on that day,
(06:46):
but we don't actually know the day that the trades
were done. What's that all about that story?
S2 (06:52):
Okay, so the allegation from labor and, you know, Andrew Charlton,
the labor backbencher, was on the 7.30 program on Wednesday night.
S5 (07:00):
Now you were an adviser to the Rudd Government during
the global financial crisis. First of all, your reaction when
you when you learnt that Peter Dutton had bought and
sold bank shares during the crisis?
S6 (07:12):
My jaw fell to the floor. Why is that? At
a time of national crisis when every Australian leader was
focused on the national interest. He was focused on making money.
He was focused on his own interests and he in.
S2 (07:26):
Fact said, you know, this information about the share trading
and the which has prompted the questions about the timing
had actually been worked out by labor or researched by labor,
and had been sort of pushed around, if you like,
or shopped around for a while leading up to the
publication of that story.
S5 (07:44):
What you're saying is the government had access to this information,
was in possession of that. Anthony Albanese was in possession
of this information before. It was before it appeared in
the media.
S6 (07:55):
Absolutely. I mean, it is the government's job at a
time when we're all looking at register of members interests
to look at this information.
S1 (08:02):
What was he doing? Andrew Charlton, why did he. Why?
Why the hell did he admit that he learnt this
information from the Prime Minister's office? Surely they all just
would have had their own jaws on the floor. As
he said a number of times in that interview.
S2 (08:12):
Yeah, it wasn't the greatest interview, I have to say, Paul,
was it? He went out there to try and frame
Peter Dutton and ended up framing himself.
S5 (08:20):
If it was of such enormous ethical importance as you suggest,
why not release it that day? Why save it up?
S6 (08:26):
I'm not sure it was saved up at all. I
think it was released promptly.
S5 (08:30):
Well, how? How promptly? When did you become aware of it?
S6 (08:32):
Reasonably shortly before it was.
S2 (08:34):
Look, putting aside that awkward interview what you know, as
you touched on what his central point was, is that
Dutton had potentially received inside information about the bank guarantee
coming through from the Rudd government and had sort of
enriched himself, bought shares in banks when they were at
a low ebb a day before the bank guarantee comes
through and pushes the share prices up. Now, as you say,
(08:56):
there are problems with that theory or allegation because he
may have bought them 30 days before MPs get 30
days to declare he may have bought them 60 days
before and was declaring it late. We don't actually know now.
It is correct that Peter Dutton could find the exact
dates and release those dates. It would be great to
see that it if it you know, if it was
around the time of the bank guarantee. It's not a
(09:18):
great look, but conversely, it's also not silly of Dutton
to have been purchasing, you know, bank shares, the big
four in particular.
S1 (09:25):
Um, at a low ebb.
S2 (09:26):
Yeah. I mean, that's you know, you could argue that's
just a smart investment strategy. Indeed. That's what he's saying.
It's just a smart investment strategy. I'm sure other people
did that. So on and so forth.
S1 (09:35):
Quite a few Labour MPs have put on social media
this week. Just jokes about the the opposition leader's wealth.
And it strikes me that Labour is trying to change
the narrative about his background. He's the kind of only
well-known public narrative about Dutton, I'd say, is that he's
he's a tough arse, that he was a former cop,
that he was a Home affairs and immigration minister, and
his tough on crime, tough on national security. And there's
(09:58):
a suburban authenticity there, I think, in the mix. Do
you think that labor could have any success in using
this information about his property holdings, but also his share
trading to do anything to dent that perception of Peter Dutton?
Or is it is that perception too baked into the
public consciousness to actually shift? Look, it.
S2 (10:20):
May be too well baked in, as you say, but
I think I mean, to your exact point, what labor
is trying to do is reshape public perceptions to round
the man out at a minimum and say, actually, here
are some other things that you did not know in
terms of this share story. And I guess to some extent,
maybe my story performed that function as well. Peter Dutton
(10:43):
has sort of, throughout his career, and particularly since becoming
opposition leader, really painted himself as a kind of everyman,
a knockabout bloke, a Queenslander, a former cop who's worked hard,
you know, wife and three kids, really kind of a
suburban bloke, if you like Mr. Average. Nothing like Malcolm Turnbull,
for example, who's seen as a bit of a, you know,
(11:03):
the archetypal or stereotypical wealthy liberal and not from that
kind of background of, you know, at least schooling sort
of privilege and what have you. That Tony Abbott, for example,
was from. Now, what these stories about his wealth do is,
I think, to some extent function as a bit of
a Rorschach test for voters. Like, here's the idea is
(11:26):
here's some more information. You didn't know this, this and
this about him. And, you know, people can kind of
decide for themselves, is he this knockabout bloke or is
he this wealthy property investor? You know, is he is
he to be admired for working from the age of
19 and buying properties, or has he had, you know,
help from daddy? I say that in inverted commas to
get ahead. Um, you know, these are questions, I guess
(11:48):
worth considering.
S1 (11:49):
Yeah. So tell us what Dutton is said to in
response to both of these stories, really because he held
a press conference on Wednesday.
S2 (11:55):
Yeah. So he's done that kind of classic deflection thing
where he's, you know, framed it as labour dirt. It's
not therefore valid information or worth reporting.
S4 (12:03):
Now 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.
S2 (12:16):
I do think both stories were worth reporting. You know,
mine was not in any way connected to the Labor Party.
I do my own research, but he he kind of
pushed back. He said, look, does the PM, you know,
does labor oppose people having aspiration? Does it oppose people
working hard and building houses and building their wealth over time?
S4 (12:35):
I'm proud of what we achieved. I didn't grow up
with a silver spoon in my mouth. My parents worked hard.
They instilled in us a couple of things.
S2 (12:44):
And similarly with probably more specifically and more sharply with
the shares story, he's just argued, it's sort of a
it's a what a 15, 16 year old beat up,
you know, from Labor's dirt unit and don't pay any
attention to it.
S1 (12:57):
Just on this share issue, I was talking to someone
who was involved in the in the story from on
the labor side on Wednesday night, who suggested that this
story probably won't have legs and won't kick into the
election campaign unless there's some smoking gun or new piece
of information that puts more pressure on Dutton to explain
whether he may have had inside information, which he denies. James,
(13:19):
is there any potential for an inquiry here or any
further questions being asked in different creative ways? Is this
story going to stay in the news?
S2 (13:27):
Look, I think the smoking gun point is the correct one.
At this point. We don't know if there is a
smoking gun. We don't know if there will be more
information coming out. I think this idea of releasing the
minutes from the shadow cabinet or the shadow work from
15 years ago, is a bit far fetched. If there
was going to be an investigation in the first instance,
it would be the Privileges Committee, which kind of oversees
(13:48):
MPs declaration on the Register of Members interests. But to
be honest, they don't have a lot of power now.
The other thing I'd like to sort of say, in
defence of Peter Dutton, if you like, is it wasn't
a state secret that the Rudd government, I was here
in Parliament House at the time that the Rudd government
was looking at doing a bank guarantee. You know, other
countries around were doing it. It was widely canvassed in
(14:09):
the news. It was easily forecastable that such a guarantee
would strengthen the position of the banks and therefore strengthen
the position of their share price. So I don't think,
you know.
S1 (14:21):
It's unlikely to be the case that there was a
special briefing in which a very unique, unexpected piece of
information was given to members of the opposition. That was
not something that was broadly known around that period of time.
S2 (14:34):
Exactly. I mean, there were briefings at the time. I
know that Malcolm Turnbull, as the opposition leader at the time,
was getting briefings. I'm sure he would have talked to
his colleagues. At that time, Dutton had switched from being
shadow finance to shadow health minister. So he made, you know,
in theory, you'd think he wasn't getting that briefing as
a as a non-economic portfolio holding shadow minister. But, you know,
(14:54):
the information would have filtered out. The point for me, though,
is that it was I mean, this was being discussed
on the front pages of newspapers.
S1 (15:00):
Still, maybe not the best look to be doing anything
at a time when, you know, we're going through a
financial crisis to enrich oneself. If you're in politics and
have high ambition, as he had. James tells Peter Dutton
(15:23):
in his press conference on Wednesday, was very quick to
jump into the common politician refrain of information that is
damaging being dug up by an opposition dirt unit. This
is a real Canberra insider point of intrigue. Dirt units.
What are dirt units? Do they exist? What is the
relationship of any such dirt unit to their stories this week?
S2 (15:45):
Yeah. Look, first of all, no political party is ever
going to admit to having a dirt unit. But they
all have. Let's call them research units. They've been around
for decades towards the end of the Fraser government. They
had people in every capital city sort of monitoring the radio.
Hawke and Keating come in. They set up the National
Media Liaison Service, which comes to be known as the animals.
(16:07):
You can kind of see the MLS in the word,
and they were famously kind of cowboys and would dig up,
you know, bits of informative information on the then opposition coalition. Um,
you know, they go on and on and on. The
Howard government had the government members Secretariat, which was run
(16:28):
by a legendary kind of former spinner, a guy called
Ian Hankey, I believe. And then on through, you know,
the Rudd and Gillard governments, they had the caucus support
and training unit through to today. So they do have
these research teams. They do dig up publicly information. You know,
they might do something like compile a set of quotes
that show, um, for example, Sussan Ley and Jane Hume
(16:50):
contradicting each other on something, or Chris Bowen and Tony
Burke being at variance and disagreeing and saying, look, you know,
the government's divided or the opposition is divided, they go
through and look at share trades like we've seen this week.
They go through look at property records. Some of them
are better than others. Bill shorten, when he was opposition leader,
had a legendary research, let's call it team. So it's
(17:13):
not unusual. You know, both all sides of politics are
always looking for any advantage that would kind of give
them an edge over their opponent.
S1 (17:21):
My understanding is the in the early part of this government,
you maybe know better than me, James, but there was
no research unit for a period of the start of
this term under labor. I think there was a view
inside the Prime Minister's office that wasn't the right way
to engage in a new government. There was not a
need for it. I think that changed about halfway through.
And there now is a unit that includes a couple
of staffers from the PMO, but also some media staffers
(17:43):
from different offices, some of the more shrewd political officers.
Does it actually matter where the information came from and
how it came into the public domain?
S2 (17:52):
It matters in the sense that confirmation of where it
has come from allows Dutton to push it away, you know,
to put it at an arm's length and say, that's
just come from labor, that's just a base political attack,
you know, Don't believe it. Disregard it. It's not not
not that it's not credible, but it's just it's not
worth answering. It's not worth getting hung up over. If
you like.
S1 (18:12):
Helps his political argument, I should say. Journalists work with
the opposition all the time to find information out from
the government. They give us a lot of information. They
share info with us. This is not new, but, um,
any any implication, any invocation of a dirt unit is
helpful for the subject of the story, for sure. I mean.
S2 (18:30):
Journalists regularly work with senators, for example, during the Senate
estimates periods and say, you know, if you've got capacity,
this is a story I'm looking at. I can't get
an answer from the department. Can you please ask, you know,
the Deputy secretary of the Department of Transport when they're
up in infrastructure estimates, what is happening with the Suburban
Rail Link or whatever the story might be, it's pretty common.
S1 (18:51):
Yeah. And, James, it feels like this week feels like
a campaign week to me. I mean, the government started
with on the Sunday, a big election announcement on Medicare
wedged the opposition quickly into accepting it. Huge amount of
spending $8.5 billion, I think. And then they spent the
week attacking Peter Dutton. And it feels like there's been
a two party contest rather than the referendum on labor,
(19:12):
which was seen for much of the term. Is this
the start of an election campaign? When are we going
to call an election? Yeah, we're very.
S2 (19:17):
Much in the twilight of the 47th Parliament. I still
think the election is called on. I'm going to get
this wrong. I think it's March 9th. That's this Sunday.
And that would be an election that would be held
on April 12th. I could be wrong. Of course. It
could be this weekend. I think labor wants to get
a few more ducks in a row. You know, the
(19:37):
campaign headquarters are ready. The staff have been chosen. All
that stuff's in place. And then I think it's a
matter of, you know, when does the PM feel like
it's the most propitious time to call it? And. Yeah,
I mean, I think it's 2 or 3 weeks away.
There's two schools of thought in labor about that at
the moment. Some are sort of saying privately, oh, each
(19:57):
week is not quite as good as it should be,
and we're just slipping that little bit further behind in
the polls each time they come out. We need to
go now. Conversely, the view is we're starting to get
up some momentum. Things are starting to be a bit
harder for Peter Dutton and some to touch on something
you just mentioned, Paul. We are moving from that, that, that,
(20:18):
that phase where, you know, polling, for example, it's kind
of a referendum in my mind, more of a referendum on,
you know, how do you think the government's going? How
do you think the PM's going? And I think the
reason why we've seen the PM lose so much pain
is that over time, cost of living pressures have risen
and risen, and essentially they've marked the PM down because
(20:39):
he's the guy running the country, right? Moving into that
choice frame, that's where Labour hopes that they can peg
Peter Dutton back and kind of frame that question in
people's minds. Okay. We might as Labour have disappointed you
a bit, but we have done this, this and this.
And do you really want Peter Dutton to be the PM?
That's where they want to be. Now they may not
(21:00):
get there.
S1 (21:01):
I think the next set of polling posts, an interest
rate cut and post this week on Dutton will be
crucial for how people feel about the election campaign. I
think that's it from us. James, thanks for explaining how
you came about your story. Well done and thanks. Thanks
for joining us.
S2 (21:14):
Pleasure to be with one of Australia's foremost journalists, Paul Silly.
S1 (21:23):
Today's episode of Inside Politics was produced by Julia Carcasole
with technical assistance from Debbie Harrington. Tammy Mills is the
executive producer and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
Inside politics is a production of The Age and The
Sydney Morning Herald. If you enjoy the show and you
want more of our journalism, subscribe to our newspapers today.
It's the best way to support what we do. Search
(21:44):
the age or Smh.com.au forward slash, subscribe and sign up
for our Inside Politics newsletter to receive a comprehensive summary
of the day's most important news, analysis and insights in
your inbox every day. Links are in the show. Notes
I'm Paul Satchell, this is inside politics. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com