Published: 15 days ago
Updated: 15 days ago
3 min read

Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s office at Arana Hills in Queensland vandalised for third time in three weeks

A teenager has been charged over the attack but others remain at large.

Political vandalism

Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s office at Arana Hills in Queensland vandalised for third time in three weeks

A teenager has been charged over the attack but others remain at large.

Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton’s office has been vandalised for the third time in three weeks, as the federal election campaign enters its final week.

Dutton’s Arana Hills office, located just north of Brisbane in his Queensland electorate of Dickson, has been splattered with red paint.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Peter Dutton’s Arana Hills office vandalised.

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“Fascists don’t represent us” was also written in red paint on the concrete outside his office.

Various flyers were placed over the paint, with one reading: “Dutton says he can find ‘common ground’ with Trump and praises the US interference with Gaza.”

Another reads: “Dutton opposes tertiary education funding and public housing initiatives but used 6k of taxpayers’ money for company at Gina Rinehart’s birthday party.”

“Dutton wants to stop accepting refugees from Gaza but invites millionaires from overseas to settle here,” another flyer said.

A group of masked people allegedly began vandalising the office about 2.30am on Tuesday.

They ran off when Queensland Police arrived.

“A police dog tracked a woman to Leslie Patrick Park,” Queensland Police allege.

The 18-year-old woman has been charged with one count of wilful damage.

She is expected to appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court on May 20.

Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton’s office has been vandalised for the third time in three weeks.
Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton’s office has been vandalised for the third time in three weeks. Credit: 7NEWS

Another flyer read: “always was, always will be Aboriginal land”, likely in relation to Dutton’s recent comments about Welcome to Country ceremonies.

Dutton called the ceremonies “overdone” during the fourth and final leaders’ debate of the election campaign on Sunday with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The debate was hosted by 7NEWS in Sydney and moderated by Seven’s political editor Mark Riley.

“I think a lot of Australians think it is overdone and cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do,” Dutton said of the Welcome to Country ceremonies.

Albanese said it was up to event organisers to decide whether to have a ceremony.

It follows the disruption of last Friday’s Anzac Day Dawn Service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne during a Welcome to Country ceremony.

Jacob Hersant, a self-declared neo-Nazi and the first person in Victoria to be convicted of performing the Nazi salute, was seen being led away from the shrine by police.

A group of about six to eight men interrupted Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown’s ceremony.

Far-right extremists were understood to be in the crowd, and phone footage from attendees captured a young man who can be heard saying he is “standing up for white Australia” and repeating the phrase “Australia for the white man”.

RSL Victoria said the disruptive comments were drowned out by a clapping crowd of people showing their support for Indigenous Australians.

Dutton initially responded to the incident by saying Australians should respect the ceremonies regardless of their opinion on them.

On 7NEWS Sunrise on Monday, Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce said Welcome to Country ceremonies are “overdone” and make people feel “awkward” — adding he understood the concern of veterans being “welcomed” to an Anzac Day ceremony.

“I think veterans have a real and genuine concern,” Joyce said.

“If they’ve signed on the dotted line to die for this nation, they don’t believe they need to be welcomed to it.

“They’ve absolutely proven their loyalty to this nation.”

In the same segment, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek labelled “anybody who boos anyone on Anzac Day” a “scumbag”.

“What the prime minister said is right,” she said. “It’s up to individual organisations.”

“But as someone who attends a lot of events, I really like learning about the history and culture of the area that I’m visiting. So, I’d say I enjoy it.

“I don’t see it’s any skin off anybody’s nose to show that respect.”

Indigenous Australians are being used as a “political football in an outdated and tired match”, Alyawarre woman and Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson AO said.

A Welcome to Country is not about welcoming people to Australia but about welcoming people to Indigenous cultures, lands and seas, Anderson said.

“A Welcome to Country is an ancient act of generosity and peace,” she said.

“It is not up to politicians to regulate when and how a Welcome to Country should happen.”

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