Peter Dutton interview, part two: On Donald Trump and DOGE comparisons

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says Donald Trump is no conservative and has rejected assertions that his homegrown proposal for a government efficiency department was mimicking billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE drive.

Mr Dutton was speaking in an exclusive interview with the Latika Takes podcast in collaboration with The Nightly recorded ahead of the final week of campaigning ahead of the May 3 election.

Asked if he viewed the US President as a conservative, the Liberal leader said “No. No. I don’t.”

“I think the American politic is obviously very different than it is here,” he said.

“Joe Biden’s a character who has been, I think, a very different person in his later years than what he was in his prime.

“Both sides of politics for different reasons and nuances, have created a dynamic in the United States, which is nothing like what it is in Australia.”

Asked to define Mr Trump’s brand of politics, Mr Dutton declined.

“People can make their own judgments in relation to all of that,” he said.

Donald Trump has been politically radioactive for conservatives worldwide, with the US President’s treatment of Canada, including his threats to annexe the country, propelling the Liberals back into government.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese praised Mark Carney’s election win for the Liberals saying the former central and now Prime Minister had stood up for Canada’s interests, “just as I stand up for Australia’s national interest”.

Labor will be hoping to replicate the Canadian centre-left’s stunning comeback, given the Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre held a 27 point lead when the Liberals were led by former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Labor has seized on the domestic backlash to the US President, who has imposed 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium as well as a ten per cent duty on all imports despite the bilateral free trade agreement and the ANZUS alliance, and accused Mr Dutton of wanting to import American policies.

Mr Dutton has canned an unpopular policy of banning public servants from working from home but is proceeding with his plan to introduce a government efficiency department that would be headed by Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who was the face of the No campaign during the Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum.

Senator Price recently said that she wanted to “Make Australia Great Again”, but disputed that she was copying the Make America Great Again slogan, despite having previously sported a MAGA hat.

But Mr Dutton said his drive for government efficiency was nothing like tech boss Elon Musk’s DOGE.

“That’s not a word that we’ve used,” he said.

“I just don’t accept the analysis that these ideas were born of President Trump’s election, and we’ve adopted the ideas.

“It’s like saying that government efficiency was invented by the Trump Administration.

“They’re longstanding principles of the Liberal Party, of the National Party.

“Ours was a government efficiency, which is exactly what John Howard had in place after 1996 when they had the (Paul) Keating mess to clean up.

“And the fact that it’s in prime minister and cabinet, it’s not its own department, we haven’t proposed to bring somebody in from the tech sector, none of that.”

Mr Dutton said he still had good contacts who had worked for the Biden Administration and the first Trump Administration and attacked the government for having “zero relationships” within the White House.

He said this was demonstrated by Australia learning of the imposition of tariffs via the media.

“Not only the Prime Minister, and not only the ambassador, but if Richard Marles has got such a great relationship, or if Don Farrell’s got such a great relationship with his counterpart, surely there would’ve been a phone call to say, ‘look, Don, you know, we don’t know each other well, but we really appreciated the time we’ve been able to spend together, I just wanna give you — out of respect and as a courtesy — a heads up that this announcement’s about to come,” he said.

“None of that happened and I think that demonstrates the lack of preparedness from this government.

“They didn’t believe that President Trump was going to be elected.

“They put no effort into the relationship at all and they were caught by surprise and our country suffered as a result.”

Mr Albanese conceded during the Seven Network’s leader’s debate that he does not have Donald Trump’s mobile phone number and even questioned whether the US President owned a smartphone.

The Prime Minister later said that Australian and US presidents do not, by convention, text each other privately.

Mr Dutton has questioned the effectiveness of Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd on the campaign trail, saying the former prime minister appears to be frozen out of the West Wing.

Mr Rudd deleted tweets criticising Mr Trump the morning of his re-election, prompting a warning from the President’s advisor Dan Scavino Jnr.

But asked whether this meant Mr Rudd’s no longer enjoyed the Coalition’s support to continue in the role, Mr Dutton said he wanted him to succeed, even as he questioned the quality of the Prime Minister’s captain’s call in nominating the former PM in the first place.

“I suspect Kevin demanded the job and Anthony Albanese wasn’t strong enough to say to him, ‘look, you’re a friend and I owe you, but I don’t think you’re the right person for the job’,” he said.

“Now he’s in the job and we support him, but I don’t have the advice as to whether that relationship is recoverable or appointing him to another term or leaving him there, or whatever the scenario might be.”

He said if elected he would take advice on whether Mr Rudd could recover the relationship to stay on in DC.

He also revealed that he would tap Christopher Luxon for advice on being a world leader if successful on May 3.

“I’ve got a good relationship with the New Zealand Prime Minister,” Mr Dutton said.

“I’ve found him very easy to engage with and I admire that he inherited a really bad economic situation and he’s done his very best to try and deal with it.

“It’s not been easy and obviously there’s a different, difficult dynamic in that parliament as well, but I think he’s overcome all of those odds and, there are some parallels in terms of the Australian situation as well.”

When it was pointed out that Mr Luxon was New Zealand’s first bald prime minister, Mr Dutton said: “There’s hope for all, all of us.”

But he scotched rumours that his recently acquired spectacles were an attempt to spruce up his image, and said: “I’m deteriorating”.

“No, no, there’s not much that can help to make over my image, it is what it is — the genes are there,” he said.

“I can’t read properly without them, I don’t need them for distance, like I can walk without them but I was putting them on and off constantly all day.

“(And that) drove me crazy, so I’ve got trifocal (lenses).”