Holding Peter Dutton Back - Every Seat Matters
If you're worried about Peter Dutton becoming Prime Minister, you should be. But not just because of him. Dutton is not an anomaly. He is a symptom - an unfiltered manifestation of a political system that runs on fear, corporate obedience, and manufactured ignorance.
Yes, he walked out on the National Apology, demonised refugees, backed indefinite detention, and voted against marriage equality. Yes, he is shilling for coal and nuclear while the planet burns. But let’s not pretend he emerged from nowhere.
He’s a product of a political class that, for decades, has treated cruelty as strength and climate denial as strategy. Dutton is what happens when you take everything ugly in Australian politics, scrape off the polish, and leave it to fester in the open.
The Myth of Opposition: Labor Without Pressure Is Just a Slower Decline
The idea that Peter Dutton must be “held back” by electing a Labor majority is a fantasy peddled by those who benefit from a two-party duopoly that exists to serve capital, not citizens.
Labor, we’re told, is the antidote to the right. But under Albanese, new coal and gas projects keep getting rubber-stamped. The housing crisis deepens while supermarket giants post record profits. Labor won’t even touch the grotesque tax cuts for the wealthy, but they’ll nickel-and-dime dental care.
Labor’s role isn’t to transform. It’s to manage decline. Smooth the rough edges. Tinker with symptoms. But never challenge power at the root.
This isn’t about incompetence. It’s about intent.
The Greens: An Inconvenient Force for the Status Quo
Unlike the major parties, the Greens aren’t playing to donors. That’s why their presence is so irritating to the establishment. It’s not that their ideas are radical - it’s that they threaten to make politics functional.
When Greens enter Parliament, two things happen:
- Labor is forced to stop triangulating and start legislating.
- The Liberals are denied the unchallenged space to radicalise.
Don’t ask what the Greens might do. Look at what they already have:
- Forced Labor to actually cap emissions and block some fossil fuel expansions.
- Secured billions for public housing and clean energy.
- Exposed the bipartisan rorts, the defence boondoggles, the corporate handouts.
- Pushed for truth in political ads and real-time donation transparency.
This isn’t idealism. It’s structural pressure. And it works.
“Safe” Seats Are a Lie. Every Vote Builds the Alternative
The fiction of “safe” seats is one of the system’s most effective sedatives. It tells people their vote doesn’t matter - when in reality, every Greens vote is a strike against complacency. Against the illusion of choice between two parties funded by the same corporations.
In the Senate, every Greens vote can decide whether a seat is held by a climate denier or someone who understands science.
In the House, every Greens swing sends a message: the public is watching, and we’re done waiting politely while the planet cooks and inequality spirals.
What’s at Stake? Only the Future
We are living through cascading crises - ecological, economic, democratic. And what do we get in response?
From Dutton: culture war, surveillance, fossil fuels, and punitive politics for the poor.
From Labor: incrementalism, fossil fuel appeasement, and a strategy of saying the right things while doing the opposite.
We’ve seen this movie before. It ends with disaster.
However, there is another script: people-powered politics. The kind that redistributes wealth and power, the kind that challenges entrenched interests instead of managing them.
Your Vote Is a Weapon. Use It Wisely.
Vote to keep Dutton out of power - not just symbolically, but systemically.
Vote to pressure Labor where it counts: on climate, housing, inequality, and truth.
Vote to end corporate rule, one seat at a time.
This isn’t about holding anyone back.
It’s about breaking the machine that keeps pushing people like Peter Dutton forward.