Peter Dutton has revealed the sad reason why he would never let his children go to the park or use public toilets.
The Opposition leader opened up about his strict parenting style on the ABC’s Kitchen Confidential on Tuesday night.
He told the show’s presenter Annabel Crabb that the ten years he spent as a police officer before entering politics had jaundiced his view of human nature.
‘Even in the way that you bring up your children,’ said Dutton, as he prepared a fish soup on the program.
‘You know, not letting them out of your sight because you’ve seen some horrific cases where kids have been abducted or assaulted.’
Mr Dutton has three children, two boys he shares with his wife of 20 years, Kirilly, and a 21-year-old daughter from his first marriage (the family pictured together)
Crabb then pressed him on what he would prevent his kids from doing.
‘I just think, you know, at parks and in those sort of public places, you know, going to public toilets when you’re out,’ replied Mr Dutton.
‘Yeah, I think it always weighs on your mind because they’re pretty significant events.’
Mr Dutton has three children, two boys he shares with his wife of 20 years, Kirilly, and a 21-year-old daughter from his first marriage.
He revealed on the show his daughter was the ‘best mistake I ever made’.
Later in the program, as Crabb and Mr Dutton washed down the soup with a glass of South Australian Riesling, he revealed that he had suffered a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of his career in the Queensland police force.
‘I was a 19-year-old when I started policing and I had a fairly sheltered life in retrospect and I just hadn’t been exposed to that side [of life] and the viciousness of some people, the depravity of others,’ he said.
‘I can remember going to crime scenes where a young girl had been raped and to this day, I can still remember the full name of the victim, the offender, the dates of birth, the times and still picture that scene.
‘Because that was the most traumatic moment in that person’s life and you’re sharing that journey with them.
‘It jars and I think it scars as well. I mean people would refer to it, I suppose, more frequently now as sort of a PTSD or just the mental hangover of seeing that repeatedly.’
The ABC host noted the Opposition leader went ‘straight to law and order’ – with Mr Dutton previously serving in the police force between 1990 and 1999
Mr Dutton married Kirilly in July 2003 (pictured with their children)
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has spoken for the first time about the secret conception of his eldest daughter Rebecca
Crabb also confronted Mr Dutton on the show about allegedly ‘racist remarks’ he has made as the pair share a custard slice with brown butter and rum.
Mr Dutton made the remarks in question in 2016 where he claimed Malcom Fraser’s Government in the 1970s made a mistake by resettling Lebanese refugees.
At the time, he defended the comments, claiming that ‘out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second and third generation Lebanese-Muslim background’.
‘I can’t see how there’s any way of looking at that, apart from that it’s a racist remark,’ Crabb tells the conservative politician.
Mr Dutton conceded he should not have made the comment and says he has apologised for them before.
Outside of MrDutton, the latest season of Kitchen Cabinet will feature a wide variety of political figures including Bridget McKenzie of the National Party and former Greens and now independent senator Lidia Thorpe.
Kitchen Cabinet is available to stream on iView.
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