Age, Biography, and Wiki
Peter Craig Dutton was born on November 18, 1970. He is an Australian politician who served as the leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal Party from 2022 to 2025. Dutton's early career involved working as a police officer for nearly a decade before transitioning into politics.
| Occupation | Politician |
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| Date of Birth | 18 November 1970 |
| Age | 54 Years |
| Birth Place | Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
| Horoscope | Scorpio |
| Country | Australia |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Information regarding Peter Dutton's height and weight is not readily available in public sources.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Dutton is married and has three children. Details about his personal life are not extensively covered in public media.
Dutton grew up in Brisbane. He worked as a police officer in the Queensland Police for nearly a decade upon leaving school, and later ran a construction business with his father. He joined the Liberal Party as a teenager and was elected to the House of Representatives at the 2001 election, aged 30. Following the 2004 election, he was appointed as Minister for Employment Participation. In January 2006, Dutton was promoted to Assistant Treasurer under Peter Costello. After the defeat of the Liberal-National Coalition at the 2007 election, he was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Health, a role he held for the next six years.
Dutton is the eldest of five children, with one brother and three sisters. His mother Ailsa Leitch worked in childcare and his father Bruce Dutton was a builder. Dutton finished high school at the Anglican St Paul's School, Bald Hills. He worked cash in hand at a butcher shop during his school years, and his parents separated shortly after he graduated.
On leaving the police, he and his father founded the business Dutton Holdings, which was registered in 2000; it operated under six different trading and business names. The company bought, renovated, and converted buildings into childcare centres. In 2002 it sold three childcare centres to the now defunct ABC Learning, which continued to pay annual rent of A$100,000, equivalent to A$ in, to Dutton Holdings. Dutton Holdings continued to trade under the name Dutton Building & Development.
Dutton also spoke frequently on crime topics, including supporting the death penalty for the perpetrators of the 2002 Bali bombings and supporting legislation that would allow businesses to refuse service to drug addicts. In 2004, following the High Court decision in R v Carroll, he accompanied Faye Kennedy, the mother of murdered infant Deidre Kennedy, on a statewide tour to promote "Deirdre's Law", which sought to amend the double jeopardy provisions of Queensland's criminal code.
Dutton was responsible for the government's suite of "welfare-to-work" policies, which were intended to break generational poverty and welfare dependency. In November 2004, he flagged that the government would be looking at measures to encourage disability support pensioners to enter the workforce. The following year he announced that disability support pensioners deemed capable of working more than 15 hours per week would be moved to the Newstart Allowance. Changes were also made to rules for single parents, with recipients required to prove that they were not in a de facto relationship or face a reduced payment. In April 2005, Dutton announced that single parents would be required to seek employment once their youngest children entered school or receive a decrease in welfare payments. He stated that the changes were necessary to "ensure welfare dependency is not entrenched".
In January 2018, Dutton said that people in Melbourne were scared of going out because of "gang violence" involving African Australians. In an ABC interview, Jason Wood, Liberal MP representing the Division of La Trobe, repudiated suggestions that the rhetoric was an attempt at attracting race-based votes. Wood referred to the statistics he had obtained in a parliamentary migration inquiry. News.com.au reported that Dutton was "ridiculed" by Melbourne social media users. Dutton's comments formed part of a wider media discourse linking African immigrants to crime in Melbourne dating back to 2016, after violent disturbances at the Moomba Festival which were attributed by the press to the "Apex gang", a supposed African crime gang for which little evidence existed. According to a 2019 study by Monash University, Dutton's remarks followed a "flurry of 'sensationalist' media pieces about 'African gangs' in Melbourne" and members of the African-Australian community felt "stigmatised and labelled because of their race and perceived association with criminality".
Dutton opposes any changes to negative gearing which offers tax breaks to property investors, saying in May 2017 that changing it would harm the economy. He owns six properties with his wife, including a shopping centre in Townsville.
Dutton married his first wife when he was 22 years of age; the marriage ended after a few months. In 2003, Dutton married his second wife, Kirilly (Brumby), with whom he has two sons.
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| Wife | Kirilly Brumby (m. July 2003) |
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Net Worth and Salary
Peter Dutton's net worth is estimated to be around $300 million by some sources, although this figure is highly speculative and varies widely, with other estimates ranging from $1 million to $30 million. His wealth is primarily attributed to his extensive real estate investments, which include purchasing and selling multiple properties over the years. Additionally, he has invested in childcare businesses and other ventures.
Following a ministerial reshuffle, Dutton was appointed Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Revenue on 27 January 2006. He had previously worked closely with Treasurer Peter Costello on the welfare reforms, and was reportedly a "strident proponent" of WorkChoices, the government's industrial relations reform package. He successfully retained Dickson at the 2007 election, which saw the government lose office; however, his margin was reduced to 217 votes more than Labor's Fiona McNamara.
In July 2017, Dutton's Department of Immigration and Border Protection introduced a special Skilled Independent subclass 189 visa to provide a pathway for New Zealanders holding a Special Category Visa to acquire Australian citizenship. The visa requires NZ nationals to have held a Special Category Visa for five years and to maintain an annual income of $53,900. Between 60,000 and 80,000 New Zealanders residing in Australia are eligible for the Skilled Independent subclass 189 visa. By February 2018, 1,512 skilled independent visas had been issued by late February 2018 with another 7,500 visas still being processed. The Skilled Independent subclass 189 visa was criticised by Australian Greens Senator Nick McKim as a stealth means of favouring "English-speaking, white and wealthy" migrants.
In October and November 2019, Dutton expressed his views on protesters and police response. He stated that when protesters break the law "There needs to be mandatory or minimum sentences imposed... A community expectation is that these people are heavily fined or jailed." He also agreed with an on-air statement made by conservative 2GB radio presenter Ray Hadley that protesters should not receive social security payments. Leader of the Australian Greens Richard Di Natale responded by saying that "Peter Dutton doesn't know what living in a democracy means" and claimed that he's "starting to sound more like a dictator than he is an elected politician. Because somebody says something that he doesn't like, that he doesn't support, he's saying we're going to strip away income support."
In November 2019, Dutton said that the States should make protesters pay for the cost of police response to demonstrations. He said of protesters: "For many of them they don't even believe in democracy... These people are completely against our way of life. These people can protest peacefully, as many people do, but the disruption that they seek to cause, the disharmony that they seek to sow within our society is unacceptable."
Business and Investments
Dutton's business ventures include real estate and childcare businesses. He has been involved in buying and selling properties since the early 1990s, contributing significantly to his net worth. His investments also include shares and equity assets in various companies.
Upon the victory of the Coalition at the 2013 election, Dutton was appointed Minister for Health and Minister for Sport. He was moved to the role of Minister for Immigration and Border Protection in December 2014, where he played a key role in overseeing Operation Sovereign Borders. He was kept in that position after Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September 2015. In December 2017, he was also given the new role of Minister for Home Affairs, heading a new "super" department with broad responsibilities brought together from other existing departments.
According to a leaked transcript of his academic record, in 1989 Dutton failed four of six subjects in his first year of a Bachelor of Business degree at Queensland University of Technology. This prompted him to join the police force and study business part time, graduating a decade later.
Dutton graduated from the Queensland Police Academy in 1990. He was a Queensland Police officer for nearly a decade, working in the drug squad in Brisbane in the early 1990s. He also worked in the sex offenders squad and with the National Crime Authority. In 1999, Dutton left the Queensland Police, having reached the rank of detective senior constable. Documentation filed in the District Court of Queensland in 2000 describes his resignation as being prompted by a loss of driving confidence after a car crash in August 1998. During a covert surveillance operation, he rolled his unmarked Mazda 626 car while in pursuit of an escaped prisoner who was driving erratically. Dutton suffered numerous injuries in the accident, and was hospitalised briefly and bedridden for a week. He sought damages of A$250,000, equivalent to A$ in, from the escaped prisoner's insurance company but dropped the claim in 2005.
In September 2008, Nelson was replaced as Liberal leader by Malcolm Turnbull, who appointed Dutton as Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing. He retained that position when Tony Abbott succeeded Turnbull as leader in December 2009. In June 2010, Dutton released the Coalition's mental health policy. The Australian described it as "the most significant announcement by any political party in relation to a targeted, evidence-based investment in mental health", but not all experts agreed.
Dutton retained his seat with a positive swing at the 2010 election, despite an unfavourable redistribution. In the lead-up to the 2013 election, he announced a range of Coalition health policies, which were received favourably by industry groups. The Australian Medical Association said "the Coalition has delivered a strong package of practical, affordable health policies that would strengthen general practice", while Cancer Council Australia said that "Dutton's promise to finalise the bowel cancer screening program by 2020 would save an additional 35,000 lives over the next 40 years".
Dutton retained his seat at the 2013 election. He was appointed to the new ministry by Prime Minister Tony Abbott as Minister for Health and Minister for Sport. As Health Minister, Dutton announced the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund. As announced, the capital and any ongoing capital gains of the Medical Research Future Fund will be preserved in perpetuity.
Under Dutton, projected funding in the health portfolio increased in the 2014–15 Budget to $66.9 billion, an increase of 7.5 percent from $62.2 billion in 2012–13, the final full year of the Labor government. Projected expenditure on Medicare increased over 9.5 percent from $18.5 billion in 2012–13 under Labor to a projected $20.32 billion in 2014–15 under Dutton. Funding for public hospital services increased by nearly 14 percent under Dutton in the 2014–15 Budget to a projected $15.12 billion compared to $13.28 billion in the last full year of the Labor government in 2012–13. In a 2015 poll by Australian Doctor magazine, based on votes from over 1,100 doctors, Dutton was voted the worst health minister in the last 35 years by 46 percent of respondents.
On 20 December 2017, Dutton was appointed the Minister for Home Affairs with responsibilities of overseeing the Department of Home Affairs which was established on 20 December 2017 by Administrative Arrangement Order. The Home Affairs portfolio is a major re-arrangement of national security, law enforcement, emergency management, transport security, border control, and immigration functions.
In mid-July 2018, Dutton's immigration "character test" became the subject of a controversial Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary, entitled "Don't Call Australia Home", focusing on New Zealanders who had been deported from Australia. In response, Dutton issued a tweet defending his deportation policy and claiming that deporting 184 "bikies" saved Australia A$116 million. In response, the New Zealand Minister of Justice Andrew Little, who also appeared in the documentary, criticised Australia's deportation laws for lacking "humanitarian ideals." The documentary's release also coincided with the release of a 17-year-old New Zealand youth from an Australian detention centre, which had caused friction between the two governments. In response, Dutton defended his government's policy of deporting non-citizen criminals and chastised New Zealand for not contributing enough to assist Australian naval patrols intercepting the "people smugglers." In mid-July 2019, Dutton defended Australia's right to deport criminal non-citizens in response to concerns raised by the visiting New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, stating: "We need to stand up for Australians. And the New Zealand prime minister is rightly doing that for her people. But where we've got Australian citizens who are falling victim in certain circumstances where people are sexually offending against children, for example, we've had a big push to try to deport those paedophiles." In response, Patrick Keyzer and Dave Martin of La Trobe University criticised Dutton's pedophilia remarks as misleading and contended that most deportees from Australia had spent most of their lives in Australia and had little ties to New Zealand.
On 21 August 2018, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called a snap ballot of the leadership of the Liberal Party following several days of feverish leadership speculation, of which Dutton was at the centre. Dutton responded to Turnbull's ballot call by formally challenging for the leadership of the party and won 35 of 83 votes available, 7 short of a majority. Dutton then resigned from the Ministry despite being offered by Turnbull to retain his position of Minister for Home Affairs, and the media speculated that Dutton and his conservative backers in the party were likely to challenge for the leadership again in the near future.
On 22 August 2018, Dutton described what his policies would be if he were to be elected leader of the Coalition. These included scrapping the GST on electricity, which Scott Morrison described as "an absolute budget blower". He also floated the idea of having a royal commission into electricity companies. Three days later, Dutton called for another leadership spill, and Malcolm Turnbull tendered his resignation to the Governor-General. Dutton was defeated by Treasurer and Acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison by 45 votes to 40. Doubts surrounding Dutton's eligibility to be elected to parliament emerged on the grounds of section 44(v) of the Australian Constitution, as the family trust owned by Dutton operated a child care centre that received over $5.6 million in funding from the Commonwealth government, in a situation similar to Bob Day's case. Although Dutton had received legal advice stating that he was not in breach of section 44(v), Labor had received contrary advice; at Turnbull's request, the Attorney-General referred the matter to the Solicitor-General.
On 23 August 2018, Labor attempted to move a motion to refer Dutton's eligibility as an MP to the High Court, in a similar manner to referrals made during the recent parliamentary citizenship crisis. The motion failed by 69 votes to 68. On 24 August, the Solicitor-General advised that in terms of section 44(v) Dutton was "not incapable" of sitting as an MP, although he added that he had been provided with limited factual information and that, owing to differences of judicial opinion in earlier decisions of the High Court on section 44(v), Dutton's legal position could not be entirely clear without a referral to the High Court. Dutton was reappointed to his former Home Affairs portfolio by Scott Morrison in the Morrison Ministry; however, responsibility for Immigration was stripped from the role and was assigned to David Coleman.
In April 2023, Dutton announced that the Liberal Party would oppose the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum. Although members of the Liberal frontbench were forced to adopt this position, party backbenchers were free to campaign for the referendum. Dutton's stance on the referendum was immediately met with opposition from within the Liberal Party. On 6 April, former Liberal MP Ken Wyatt resigned from the party in protest. The following week, shadow Attorney-General Julian Leeser quit the Liberal frontbench and moved to the backbenches so he could freely campaign in favour of the referendum. The next day, Simon Birmingham, the leader of the Liberal Party in the Senate, also announced that he would not be adopting the party position.
Following a shadow cabinet reshuffle, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was appointed the shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians on 18 April 2023. Following allegations of sexual harassment and assault made by independent Senator Lidia Thorpe, Dutton removed Liberal Senator David Van from the Liberal party room on 15 June 2023. In August 2023, Dutton said that ballot counting rules in the upcoming 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum were "rigged", attracting criticism from MPs. On 3 September 2023, Dutton committed to hold a second referendum on Indigenous recognition if the Voice referendum failed, while also expressing support for his party's election proposal for a series of legislated local bodies (without a national one). However, following the defeat of the Voice proposal, Dutton stated that his party's prior commitment to symbolic constitutional recognition would be reviewed and that "it's clear the Australian public is probably over the referendum process for some time". On 10 January 2024, Dutton called for a boycott of Woolworths after it confirmed that it will no longer stock Australia Day-themed merchandise due to reduced sales over recent years.
* The department had made an extremely lucrative contract with Paladin without a competitive tender process, and despite the company being registered to a beach shack on Kangaroo Island. In two separate cases, KPMG had audited the wrong company when undergoing financial audits of contractors.
An editorial in The Age noted that the department seemed to lack accountability, with nobody found responsible for any of the failings. However, media outlets including News Corporation and the ABC largely ignored the scandal. At the same time, the department was involved in another scandal, when $80 million intended for Papua New Guinea disappeared. The payments were in return for resettling refugees from Manus Island, however, service providers stopped receiving payments in 2022, and neither government could explain why. Shortly after these revelations, a group of 30 men arrived in Australia by boat. Dutton blamed the Albanese government, and misleadingly claimed that Labor had cut $600 million from Operation Sovereign Borders.
On 26 September 2019, one day after the partial decriminalisation of personal cannabis use by the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government, Dutton called the decision "unconscionable" and "dangerous" in a 2GB interview. In September 2023, Dutton characterised ACT legislation on the limited decriminalisation of illicit substances as "crazy", saying that Canberra would become a "boom market" for drug gangs.
In March 2017, 31 CEOs signed a letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calling for a free vote in the Australian Parliament on same-sex marriage. In response to this letter, on 16 March, Dutton said that the CEOs "shouldn't shove their views down our throats" and that CEOs who were "doing the wrong thing" should "be publicly shamed". Dutton repeated his criticism at a speech to the LNP State Council in Queensland on 18 March. The Herald then reported that "the forcefulness of Mr Dutton's attack on corporate chief executives last week—in which he told them to "stick to their knitting"—has aroused suspicion among some colleagues who believed he was committed to achieving a breakthrough on [same-sex marriage]". The following month, The Daily Telegraph reported that Dutton was asked by a lesbian for clarification on his position, and he "told her he had been clear that he was against same-sex marriage".
After US President Donald Trump signed an executive order which stated that the United States federal government will only recognize two genders, male and female, Nationals leader David Littleproud called on Australia to adopt a similar policy. Dutton dismissed Littleproud's comments saying that "We don't have any plans to change our position in relation to that issue."
In a July 2023 address to the Institute of Public Affairs, Dutton argued for the adoption of nuclear power, calling it "the only feasible and proven technology" that can "firm up renewables and help us achieve the goals of clean, cost effective and consistent power". ABC journalist Monte Bovill characterised it as "ramping up calls for nuclear power in Australia". Dutton claimed that small modular reactors could be installed at decommissioned coal power plants, saying, "We can convert or repurpose coal-fired plants to use the transmission connections that already exist on those sites."
Social Network
Information about Peter Dutton's social media presence is not extensively detailed in public sources. However, he is frequently mentioned in political discussions on major platforms.
In early 2001, Dutton won Liberal preselection for the seat of Dickson in Brisbane's northern suburbs, reportedly with the support of Liberal powerbroker Santo Santoro. He was elected to the House of Representatives at the 2001 election, aged 30. He defeated the high-profile incumbent Australian Labor Party (ALP) MP Cheryl Kernot, a shadow cabinet minister and former leader of the Australian Democrats, with Dickson regarded as a key target seat for the Coalition.
Dutton had a relatively high profile as a first-term backbencher. He was appointed to the House Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs in 2002 and served on an inquiry into family law and the Child Support Agency, where he advocated for lawyers to have less of a role in determining parental custody. The inquiry's report was publicly criticised by Alastair Nicholson, the chief justice of the Family Court of Australia, who said its proposals were "impractical and naive".
On 15 April 2017, shots were fired by the Papua New Guinea defence force into the Manus Island Detention Centre. Dutton responded saying "There was difficulty, as I understand it, in the community. There was an alleged incident where three asylum seekers were alleged to be leading a local five-year old boy back toward the facility and there was a lot of angst around that, if you like, within the local PNG community." "I think there was concern about why the boy was being led or for what purpose he was being led away back into the regional processing centre. So I think it's fair to say that the mood had elevated quite quickly. I think some of the local residents were quite angry about this particular incident and another alleged sexual assault." The regional police commander on Manus Island said a young boy who was ten, not five, had gone to the centre two weeks earlier to ask for food. He said "It's a total separate incident altogether". The Greens senator Nick McKim said Dutton had lied. "This has disturbing echoes of the children overboard affair lies."
On 7 May, Dutton spoke publicly for the first time since his election defeat. He stated that he planned to make a "graceful exit" from politics, but declined to comment on who should succeed him as leader of the Liberal Party. Dutton's deputy Sussan Ley defeated Angus Taylor in a leadership election to succeed him as leader.
Writing in The Conversation, Michelle Grattan remarked, "those calling for more free speech are squealing increasingly loudly when others exercise their freedom in a way they don't like", comparing Dutton's public confrontation against his stance on Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Former New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally commented in The Guardian, "In Dutton's Australia [...] Free speech is great and should be expanded, unless it's an Australian corporate CEO speaking about same-sex marriage. Then they need to shut up." Simon Birmingham expressed disagreement with Dutton's comments.
In 2024, Dutton supported moves for age verification on social media. Dutton's Coalition supported the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, which banned users under sixteen years old from creating social media accounts. As Opposition Leader, he pledged to introduce laws that would make it an offence to post content on social media that promoted crime.
Lech Blaine, author of a 2024 Quarterly Essay piece about Dutton, said that she was unaware of an apology. Mehal Krayem, co-author of a 2019 paper on the subject of Dutton's comments and the media framing, doubted the existence of an apology. According to the SMH, no apology was identified after searches of newspaper archives, Dutton's Twitter publications and speech transcripts on his website. One day after the SMH article was published, Dutton said at a press conference that he had apologised to an unnamed "senior person".
Education
Dutton attended the Anglican St Paul’s School and later graduated from the Queensland Police Academy. His educational background reflects his early career path in law enforcement before transitioning into politics.
As both Immigration Minister and Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton has defended an amendment to the Migration Act 1958 that facilitates the denial or cancellation of Australian visas for non-citizens on "character" grounds. This stringent "character test" also affects non-citizens who have lived most of their lives in Australia or who have families living in the country. New Zealand nationals living in Australia were disproportionately affected by this "character test" with over 1,300 New Zealanders having been deported from Australia in the period between January 2015 and July 2018. According to a Home Affairs Department report, 620 New Zealanders had their visas cancelled on character grounds in 2017 alone.
In February 2018, Dutton used his discretionary powers as Minister of Home Affairs to deport New Zealander Caleb Maraku on the grounds that he breached the "character test" provision of the Migration Act 1958. Maraku had been sentenced to 12 months probation for committing a one punch attack on another youth in Queensland's Gold Coast in November 2017. Maraku's perceived lenient sentencing and insensitive behaviour following his sentence had drawn substantial media and public attention, including a 50,000 strong petition calling for his deportation. In response to Maraku's case, Dutton stated: "It's no different to being invited into somebody's home - you don't start assaulting the residents of that house, you don't start assaulting Australian citizens and if you do you are shown the door."