Dutton deflects question on Coalition disunity after Nats Bullwinkel candidate goes rogue on critical minerals

Peter Dutton has dismissed questions about disunity within the Coalition after Nationals Bullwinkel candidate Mia Davies broke ranks by publicly backing Labor’s flagship critical mineral and hydrogen production tax incentive policy. The former WA Nationals leader has said she’s disappointed Coalition opposed the policy in the 2024 federal budget and would have argued in favour of it if she had been in the Coalition party room at the time. Mr Dutton deflected questions on Ms Davies’ potential role in the Coalition if elected into the new outer Perth seat, where she’s in a tight three-cornered contest with Liberal candidate Matt Moran and Labor’s Trish Cook. He instead backed his candidate Mr Moran to have success in the electorate. “In relation to WA, we’ve been clear about our policy,” he said. “Matt Moran is doing a fantastic job in Bullwinkel and I believe he’ll be elected as the next member. “If he does that, then we are one step closer to getting rid of a bad government.” He also solidified his support as a Coalition leader for the mining industry, which is WA’s backbone and critical to the national economy. “We’ve been out and proud in terms of our support of the North West Shelf project, which will be canned under Labor after the election,” he said. “We support significant projects because we want to halve the approval times so that we can keep WA pumping and grow that economy. “And we’ve also announced, as you know, support for junior miners as well, which is something that Labor cut in the budget.” His reaffirmed support for the sector comes after declaring he wants the State to “boom”, in a revved up pitch to The West Australian’s Leadership Matters event on Friday. The Liberal leader had announced a $3.4 billion investment for an exploration program to map all of Australia across a 35-year surveying schedule. He also unveiled measures to “turbocharge” the jobs and investment through a new critical minerals plan. If elected, he said Coalition plans to expand Australia’s official critical minerals list to ensure uranium was included, along with zinc, bauxite, alumina, aluminium, potash, phosphate and tin. The expansion is aimed at opening up financing opportunities to gas companies, complementing his key election gas plan pledge. But Mr Dutton had warned WA the May 3 election was a “sliding doors” moment for the State’s economy, pinning himself as the leader to “halve” the approval time for new mining projects compared to a possible anti-mining Greens-Labor Coalition under an Albanese hung parliament.