Peter Dutton sells himself as a multicultural champion

It is a show that few would have had on their Bingo card for the second whole day of the election campaign: Peter Dutton who removes the shoes to enter a mosque. Yet there the opposition leader was Sunday at Al Madina Masjid in Leppington in the western part of Sydney.

And not only to visit but offer $ 25,000 for closed circuit cameras to help protect Muslim worshipers on the mosque.

After all, Dutton faced a regular condemnation by Islamic leaders for his comments on Muslim immigration and his unshakable support for Israel during the war in Gaza. Usman Khawaja cricketer marked dutton “An Absolute Disgrace” last July To say that a minority laburist government would be a disaster because it “will include Muslim candidates of the Western Sydney”.

Dutton also discussed that he had not accepted Palestinian refugees from Gaza for the fact that they represent a risk of national security and in 2016, he raised a sensation by telling Parliament that the Fraser government had made an error allowing so many Lebanese Muslims to migrate to Australia. Dutton said he was apologized for the comments, but Community leaders insist on the fact that they have no memory of him who does it.

Dutton has already visited a mosque – in the city of Western Australia of Katanning in 2016, for example – but this was a rare event. Now, the election campaign is in full swing and Dutton is chasing votes in ethnically and religiously different communities. With his extraordinary decision to visit a mosque in front of a church, a synagogue or a Hindu temple, Dutton invited the voters to take another look at him and re -evaluate their hypotheses. All Australians deserve to be able to “adore in peace and harmony,” he said during the visit of the mosque.

Loading

In addition to the minister of immigration, internal and defense affairs, Dutton has been the de facto minister of the coalition for 2 GB in the last ten years, composing the regular chats with Sydney’s conservative talkback station. At the beginning of the campaign, he is also presenting himself as Minister of SBS, filling his itinerary of the campaign of stops designed to present it as a sample of multiculturalism.

To tell the truth, Dutton is still trying to appeal to the white voters of the working class in Suburban and Regional Australia. He kicked off his campaign at the XXXX Brewerry in Brisbane and, on Sunday, he put a high visual jacket to visit A western Sydney brick factory. After his plane arrived at Sydney airport, he set himself in 2 GB for a telephone interview.

Less predictably, before his visit to the mosque, he participated in a New Year’s event in the Fowler electorate, a deputy independent of Le, mixing with migrants who fled the persecution in countries such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. The liberal party has no hope of winning that seat, but the photos of a smiling dutton that holds children in traditional Assyrian costumes have sent a wider message that worries about the background voters other than his.