Don't let self-serving politicians hijack our life-and-death issues

Peter Dutton, the Australian minister who wants to fast-track the relocation of white South African farmers to his country, says that his critics are dead to him.

This is, of course, a lie. Dutton’s critics are political gold to him.

After all, if you’ve decided to exploit South Africa’s explosive land issue to score points with your cracker constituency in Queensland, what’s the only priceless gift no amount of money or publicity can buy?

African anger.

Enter Julius Malema, stage far left, denouncing Dutton as a racist and giving the Australian an early Christmas present.

No doubt Malema was playing to his own electorate, but accusations of racism are meant to do damage: presumably, he also hoped to dent Dutton’s reputation in Australia. But if that was the case, he was hopelessly off the mark.

All Dutton’s voters would have seen was an angry black African Marxist, one who was pivotal in putting Trainwreck Zuma in power and who once sang songs about killing white people, yelling abuse at their bloke. 

For Tom Eaton's full column visit Times Select