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December 31, 2024
Education Minister Jason Clare has admitted the meme Labor posted on social media about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his wife was “stupid” and “wrong” after the prime minister ordered it to be taken down.
The Victorian ALP launched a public attack this week on the opposition leader and his wife Kirilly by posting on Facebook a photo of the couple clipped from a newspaper story, with the caption “Justifying dating your new partner to your friends who don’t like him”. The photo of the couple prominently displayed the quote “he is not a monster”.
Mr Clare confirmed that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ordered it to be taken down late on Monday after it came to his attention. Mr Clare was the first federal Labor minister to respond to the meme issue on Tuesday.
“I think it was stupid and it was wrong, and I’m glad it’s been taken down,” he said in a press conference.
“A family should be off limits. We’re on the ballot paper, not our partners, and that’s why when the prime minister saw it, he demanded that it be ripped down, and I’m glad it has.”
Mr Dutton promised on Monday night that the Liberal Party would not target Mr Albanese’s fiancée Jodie Haydon in response to the Facebook post.
“I respect and like Jodie, but she is not an elected official and will not be the subject of humiliation, attack ads or public smear by the Liberal Party. I would ask the PM to equally respect my wife,” he said on X.
The image and quote that the Victorian Labor Party used was from a 2019 Courier-Mail interview with Kirilly Dutton about the death threats her husband had received during his time as home affairs minister.
The full quote was: “He is a really good man. He is a really good father and he’s not a monster.”
Liberal senator James Paterson said the meme was offensive, and “family should be off limits from political attacks”.
“Labor would be rightly outraged if the Liberal Party ever went after Anthony Albanese’s family like this,” Senator Paterson said.
“This just reeks of desperation from a government lagging in the polls and bereft of any solutions to the cost-of-living crisis facing Australians. Smearing Peter Dutton and his family is all they have left.”
The latest The Australian Financial Review/Freshwater Strategy poll showed Mr Dutton was regarded as a stronger and more decisive leader than Mr Albanese.
The mid-December poll had the Coalition leading Labor 51 to 49 on a two party-preferred basis for the second successive month, pointing to a hung parliament at the next election, due by mid-May 2025.
