Josh Butler
The shots of sharing cuppas with constituents and laughing with his kids skates over the details of his ‘small family business’
Election season officially begins when the prime minister drives in the back of C1 to visit the governor general – but its unofficial commencement is when leaders start releasing soft-focus profile videos with their log cabin story, surrounded by family and backed by twinkling music.
For an opposition leader especially, whose contributions can often be overshadowed by the prime minister whose job they covet, the productions – often short yet packed with meaning – are a vital chance to re-introduce or repackage themselves to a public who might not know much about them.
Peter Dutton’s contribution to this catalogue, released on the Australia Day public holiday Monday, runs heavy on the main themes of his time leading the Liberal party: his time as a police officer and business owner, a family man, who cares about community safety and making tough decisions which “aren’t always popular”.
It calls to mind Dutton’s famous proclamation in 2018, during his unsuccessful bid to roll Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader, that he was looking forward to smiling more and “maybe show a different side” to his carefully crafted hard man persona. It’s also of a piece with one of Dutton’s first TikTok videos (months after his party suggested security concerns with the app) titled “3 things about me that you won’t see in the media” – featuring a photo of his dog “good boy Ralph”, his Honda dirt bike, and a photo of “me and my grandmother at my swearing-in ceremony”.
The same picture is the opening shot of Dutton’s video, titled “Determined to get Australia back on track”, before a long, lingering shot of a police citation award.
“I learned the importance of always turning up and getting on with the job,” he said of his time as a police officer, then detective senior constable. The video presents a kinder, gentler image of Dutton, the strongman politician whose career has been built on tough-talking on immigration, crime and public spending.
But just as interesting as what the video includes – shots of shared cuppas with constituents, shaking hands with business owners, laughing with his kids – is what it skates over.
“I started a small family business. It grew to 40 staff who had families, mortgages and aspirations, which means that you are relied on to balance the books and be responsible,” Dutton says in the video.
That “small family business” got Dutton into a big drama seven years ago.
During that 2018 leadership spill, which saw Scott Morrison come through the fray to win the top job, it was revealed that a family trust – of which Dutton, his wife and children were beneficiaries – operated two childcare centres which received payments from the government.
Dutton off-loaded those interests in 2019 and no longer lists RHT Investments in the shareholdings or trusts section of his parliamentary register of interests (although it is listed for his spouse and children). His wife is listed as director of RHT Investments, Dutton Holdings, Bald Hills Child Care and PK Super.
Around the same time in 2018, Dutton’s property interests also hit the spotlight. The Australian Financial Review ran an article on how he had amassed “a property portfolio worth millions of dollars”, detailing his time as a property investor and a director of his family trust, Dutton Holdings. The portfolio included a waterfront property at Palm Beach then valued at $2.3m.
“The Duttons’ property investments are now estimated to be worth more than $5 million,” the AFR reported at the time, also listing RHT Investments’ purchase of a Townsville shopping plaza, and describing Dutton’s own home as an “acreage estate”.
Dutton’s current register of interests lists a residential/farm property in Dayboro, Queensland, as well as an investment property in Brisbane.
In past speeches, he has discussed his parents’ business history, describing his father as a “self-employed bricklayer and builder” and his mother running “a small family day care business”.
In recent podcast interviews and his campaign rally speech in Victoria, Dutton has also talked of his after-school odd jobs: “I threw newspapers, had a lawn mowing run, and worked in a butcher’s shop”.
Speaking to the small business council in 2023, he said his upbringing “inspired me to start my own small business; first with a building and development arm, and then ultimately in childcare where I employed about 40 staff before coming into politics”.
Of course, it’s not uncommon for politicians to highlight certain parts of their log cabin story over others. Take Dutton’s opponent, Anthony Albanese, whose own version of such a narrative video – published a year before the 2022 election – proclaimed “when I bought my house, it was affordable”.
The video didn’t note that, at the time, the then-opposition leader had interests in four properties – residences in Canberra and Sydney, plus two more investment properties in Sydney.
That 2021 video spruiked Albanese’s everyman image, leaning into his student activist history and his childhood in public housing. Some political analysts believe that portrayal may have taken a hit over the last three years, after intense media scrutiny on Albanese’s international travel, the airline perks he and other politicians accepted from Qantas, and his purchase of a $4.3m clifftop beach house at Copacabana.
We could see Labor attempt its own image reset for the prime minister, to remind people of the “Albo” they elected in 2022.
But just remember – it pays to keep a close eye on what they highlight, and what they push to the background.
