As the US election campaign showed, if the sentiment connects, the detail is irrelevant – the vibe carries it
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When Peter Dutton lumbered on to the national political stage in 2001 with his stiff policeman’s gait and hectoring manner, few saw him as prime minister John Howard’s heir and successor.
That this is what he has become is a measure, two decades later, of just how effective Howard’s remaking of the Liberal party has been. Under the Howard government, guided by Crosby Textor, and with a nod to the carceral logic of the penal colonies, cruelty became a badge of honour. Those affected were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, refugees, the poor and those historians who asked awkward questions that could only be answered by challenging the prevailing orthodoxy.
