Peter Dutton has endorsed the decision of numerous senior Coalition frontbenchers to support a Pauline Hanson motion calling for an inquiry into healthcare for transgender children, saying it was a “conscience vote” issue, despite a recent order to his caucus to avoid culture war topics.
The opposition leader also doubled down on his party’s decision to seek to gag attorney general Mark Dreyfus, the nation’s most senior Jewish politician, as he spoke about antisemitism in parliament on Monday. Dutton accused Dreyfus of a “slur” in saying that the Coalition was politicising antisemitism, which the attorney general strongly denied.
“I never thought I’d see the day when a Liberal leader would try to silence a Jew for speaking about antisemitism,” Dreyfus said.
On Monday night, 18 of the Coalition’s 30 senators sided with One Nation leader Hanson in a failed push for a parliamentary inquiry into the “human cost of experimental child gender treatments”. Frontbenchers Michaelia Cash, Bridget McKenzie, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Jonathon Duniam, Perin Davey and Kerrynne Liddle were among them.
The unsuccessful inquiry would have come on top of a government review of medical treatment for transgender children, announced last month.
The wide-ranging terms of reference for Hanson’s proposed Senate inquiry included testimonies from individuals who had undergone treatment that used puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical interventions, and the experience of families who were “pressured, misled or denied” consent in their child’s treatment.
The motion failed 21 votes to 36, with three moderate Liberal senators – Andrew Bragg, Maria Kovacic and Richard Colbeck – siding with Labor and crossbenchers to oppose. Other senior Coalition members Jane Hume and Anne Ruston were not present for the vote.
A week before, the Nine newspapers reported Dutton telling the Coalition party room to focus election campaigning energy on the cost of living rather than wading into culture wars, and not be distracted by personal agendas.
The Coalition is seeking to win back inner-city seats formerly held by moderate MPs but lost to ‘teal’ independents at the 2022 election, but some in the party believe a focus on conservative issues may make that battle harder. Last week on Sky News, Dutton backed moves to ban trans women from female sports, but called the issue “a very confronting debate” for families.
On Tuesday, he did not resile from the fact that most of his Senate caucus, including some of his most senior ministers, had backed a One Nation motion on the issue.
Asked at a press conference if that action had his sanction, he responded: “Yes”.
“We’ve taken a position before that it’s a conscience vote in relation to that issue and that’s applied as it did in previous votes,” Dutton said.
He did not take a follow-up question and ended his press conference shortly afterward. The issue was not discussed at Tuesday morning’s Coalition party room meeting, a spokesperson said.
The health minister, Mark Butler, on Tuesday said: “Playing politics around the health and the lives, [and] importantly, the mental health of some of Australia’s most vulnerable young people is frankly, an appalling thing to do.”
Dutton meanwhile backed the decision of his newly appointed manager of parliamentary business, Michael Sukkar, to try to prevent Dreyfus from speaking about antisemitism on Monday. The attorney general – the son and grandson of holocaust survivors – had been asked by the opposition about mandatory minimum sentences for antisemitic crimes, with Coalition members interjecting through his response.
“In the last few months, I have stood in the shadow of the main gate at the Auschwitz death camp, I have stood on the field where a music festival in Israel was turned into a bloodbath and I have stood in the ruins of a burnt out synagogue in my own home. But those opposite have taken every opportunity since 7 October 2023 to politicise the trauma and the experiences of the Jewish people,” Dreyfus said.
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“I do not need the leader of the opposition or any of those opposite to tell me what antisemitism is or how seriously I should take it. You are disgusting.”
Sukkar moved a motion that Dreyfus should no longer be allowed to speak, which the Coalition later explained was in response to Dreyfus’s claim the opposition had politicised the issue.
The tactic is not often used in question time, and was sharply criticised by shocked Labor members in the chamber. Government sources produced data showing it was only the fourth use of such a motion in question time in this parliament.
Dreyfus was eventually permitted to finish his answer, but Dutton on Tuesday said the attorney general’s claims were “completely without foundation”, denying it was a poor look to gag a Jewish politician speaking about antisemitism.
“He was closed down because he made a suggestion that we were politicising antisemitism. He was completely out of order. And if he had decency that you would expect from the first law officer, he would have withdrawn that without us requesting him to do so. It was a slur. It was misplaced,” Dutton claimed.
In a statement in response, Dreyfus also did not back down.
“I stand by everything I said yesterday. We need to put an end to the wave of antisemitism in this country which is exactly what the government I am a part of has worked tirelessly to do. The only way that will happen is if there is unity and bipartisanship,” he said.
The resources minister, Madeleine King, said she was “shocked” at the opposition’s move on Monday and believed they had made a mistake.
“I was just staggered … to have [Dreyfus] shut down like that brings great shame on the Coalition.”