Peter Dutton’s election campaign was sabotaged from within by traitors within his own party, former Liberal National Party and One Nation MP George Christensen has claimed.
Mr Christensen wrote in an article on his Nation First Substack on Sunday that the Opposition leader, who lost his own seat of Dickson in the Coalition’s crushing election defeat, was “set up to fail” by factional rivals who feared his leadership.
He then revealed in a thread on X that a Coalition insider has since contacted him to confirm the sabotage took place, and told him that senior figures within the Mr Dutton’s HQ “just gutted the campaign” by preventing tasks from being carried out and not paying invoices.
I just received a message from a Coalition insider who said my take “re Dutton sabotage is spot on.”
They said key figures in Liberal Party HQ “just gutted the campaign” and kept stopping people from doing what needed to be done, slowing it all down and not paying invoices. 1/3 https://t.co/EWYR98lnwS— George Christensen (@NationFirstAust) May 4, 2025
“This wasn’t a stuff-up. It wasn’t bad luck. This was premeditated political sabotage—a coordinated takedown by factional cowards, backstabbing opportunists, and hollow men whose loyalty lies not with voters, not with the country, but with their own futures,” Mr Christensen wrote.
“They’re already trying to rewrite history. The media narrative is locked and loaded: Dutton was too right wing to win. Rubbish. If anything, he was too restrained. He didn’t step to the right—he stepped aside. He avoided the fights he could’ve won. He muted his instincts in the hope of keeping the wreckers in the tent.”
Mr Christensen said the trouble started for Mr Dutton when he developed a 12-point blueprint late last year, only for “moderates” with the backing of unlikely allies in party’s right faction in NSW to start a wrecking campaign.
This was followed by leaks to journalists blaming Mr Dutton and the right faction, according to Mr Christensen.
“The Liberal Party is crawling with this breed of political assassin. The Black Hand—that shadowy circle of self-serving moderates who would rather the Coalition burn than let a conservative lead it. Their playbook is centuries old: divide, delay, destabilise, destroy,” he wrote.
“In New South Wales, these types are the Armani-suited influence peddlers in the Liberals who treat politics like a cocktail circuit. They don’t build movements. They stack preselections and count donor dollars.
“And after they get their men and women into office they use their influence to lobby on behalf of major corporates, collecting fat wads of cash along the way. It’s all a grift for these guys.”
Mr Christensen also referenced a comment made by Benjamin Britton, who was controversially dumped as Liberal candidate for Whitlam for saying women shouldn’t serve in combat roles, calling out factional infighting in the party.
“The left faction works hand in glove with members of the right faction, who are traitors, to stab Peter Dutton in the back so they can roll him as leader,” Mr Britton told 2GB last month, saying he was the subject of a witch hunt for refusing to sign up to a faction.
The article went on to blast the Coalition campaign for chasing the Teal vote and courting residents of inner seat seats, and Mr Christensen quoted a source close to the campaign who told him: “It’s like they were trying to throw the election from the start.”
“Peter Dutton didn’t lose this campaign. He was set up to fail by people who feared what he represented: a return to conviction, to strength, to conservatism. A leader who might just break the grip of the Sydney factions and give the base something worth voting for again,” Mr Christensen wrote.
“And they couldn’t have that. So they blew it up. Remember that.”
Former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi also weighed in on leaks against Mr Dutton on X on Sunday in response to a post by conservative commentator Kobie Thatcher which said: “The only people saying the LNP should move further to the left are those who vote for Labor, Greens, and Teals.”
“And those lefty liberals who leaked all the poison to the media,” Mr Bernardi replied.
“And yes, journalists have confirmed to me (and others) the leaks and complaints came from the Liberal left faction.”
Header image: Peter Dutton launching his campaign in Sydney (Facebook).
