Peter Dutton arrived in Federal Parliament at the tumultuous 2001 election that was dominated by issues of asylum seekers and the September 11 terrorist attacks.
They are topics that — until his resignation from the Home Affairs portfolio today — have dominated his recent political existence.
Mr Dutton won his outer Brisbane seat of Dickson by defeating former Democrats leader, turned Labor MP, Cheryl Kernot.
He was 31 when he gave his first speech to Parliament outlining his nine years service as a Queensland police officer and having been a Liberal Party member all his adult life.
"I am proud of the fact that I had a distinguished career in the police service and that that service saw me perform duties all over the great state of Queensland," he told the House more than 16 years ago.
As an ex-cop he outlined a tough-on-crime approach and a frustration with "the boisterous minority and the politically correct"
Pursuing a silent majority
"The silent majority, the forgotten people — or the aspirational voters of our generation, as some like to term them — are fed up with bodies like the Civil Liberties Council and the Refugee Action Collective and certainly the dictatorship of the trade union movement," he said.
Prime Minister John Howard chose him for the frontbench after just one term in Parliament, making Mr Dutton the Workforce Participation Minister — then Assistant Treasurer.
That early elevation to the ministry means he is now the second most experienced minister in the Turnbull Government after Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
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He was seven votes short of being Australia's Prime Minister — who is Peter Dutton?
By political correspondent Louise Yaxley and political reporter Jackson Gothe-Snape
Updated about an hour ago
Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton speaks during a press conference in Canberra on September 25, 2008.
Photo: Peter Dutton has emerged as Malcolm Turnbull's major rival. (Alan Porritt, file photo: AAP)
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Peter Dutton arrived in Federal Parliament at the tumultuous 2001 election that was dominated by issues of asylum seekers and the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Key points:
Peter Dutton is the second most experienced minister after Julie Bishop
He has been a property investor and childcare business proprietor
Dutton missed Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generations, but has since expressed regret
They are topics that — until his resignation from the Home Affairs portfolio today — have dominated his recent political existence.
Mr Dutton won his outer Brisbane seat of Dickson by defeating former Democrats leader, turned Labor MP, Cheryl Kernot.
He was 31 when he gave his first speech to Parliament outlining his nine years service as a Queensland police officer and having been a Liberal Party member all his adult life.
"I am proud of the fact that I had a distinguished career in the police service and that that service saw me perform duties all over the great state of Queensland," he told the House more than 16 years ago.
As an ex-cop he outlined a tough-on-crime approach and a frustration with "the boisterous minority and the politically correct".
Photo of Peter Dutton as a police officer with his grandmother
Photo: Peter Dutton with his grandmother, during his career as a police officer. (Supplied: Office of Peter Dutton)
Pursuing a silent majority
"The silent majority, the forgotten people — or the aspirational voters of our generation, as some like to term them — are fed up with bodies like the Civil Liberties Council and the Refugee Action Collective and certainly the dictatorship of the trade union movement," he said.
Prime Minister John Howard chose him for the frontbench after just one term in Parliament, making Mr Dutton the Workforce Participation Minister — then Assistant Treasurer.
That early elevation to the ministry means he is now the second most experienced minister in the Turnbull Government after Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
Peter Dutton
Photo: Peter Dutton has continued the border security policies set up by Scott Morrison. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
Boycotting the apology
He offered to quit the shadow ministry in 2008 because he was so against Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generations.
Mr Dutton was the only frontbencher to boycott the apology.
He told the ABC's Q&A program in 2010 he stayed away because he regarded it as "something which was not going to deliver tangible outcomes to kids who are being raped and tortured in communities in the 21st century".
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald last year he said he now regrets staying away.
"I didn't appreciate the symbolism of it and the importance to Indigenous people," Mr Dutton told the paper.
Botched seat switch
An electoral redistribution made his seat much more marginal in 2009 — and prompted him to try to switch to the safe seat of McPherson on the Gold Coast.
Despite backing from the Prime Minister, the local pre-selectors rejected him and instead chose Karen Andrews who is now the assistant Minister for Vocation Education.
Liberals privately criticised his strategy of trying to move into a safe seat when his own looked shaky.
He has defended that marginal electorate since his failed bid to move — he is now on a margin of just 2 per cent.
The swing away from the Coalition by-election in the neighbouring seat of Longman reinforced the vulnerability of LNP members in Queensland.
His slim margin means he would lose if there is a similar swing in Dickson.
It is one of the reasons there is a push to replace Malcolm Turnbull with a Queensland LNP figure.
At 47, if Mr Dutton was to become PM he would be roughly the same age as Paul Keating when he took the leadership from Bob Hawke nearly three decades ago.
But he faces a potential threat to his seat in Parliament with two constitutional lawyers saying he could be disqualified because he has a financial interest in two Brisbane childcare centres that receive money from the Federal Government.
But Mr Dutton's office says he has legal advice that he has not breached the Constitution.
Timeline of interests
Mr Dutton's register of interests stretching back to 2001 lists property holdings, share trading and hospitality, including:
2001: Enters Parliament with three properties linked to his childcare businesses and one investment at Mt Cotton in Queensland.
2002: Sells two childcare businesses to ABC Childcare, the company which fell into receivership in 2008.
2004: Purchases residential property at Camp Mountain, where he currently lives.
2005-6: First hospitality disclosures include job services provider Max Network, Philip Morris, and property developer Grocon.
2008-9: 13 separate disclosures of share trading in BHP, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac, Qantas and NAB shares between October and March.
2012: Purchases apartment in Canberra.
2016: Latest disclosures list four investment properties and a home in Camp Mountain owned personally, as well as more owned under trust.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-21/peter-dutton-7-votes-short-of-being-prime-minister/10139108
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