Australian opposition leader says his home was the target of an alleged bomb plot

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton confirmed on Friday that his family home had been the target of an alleged bomb plot, but said concerns for his personal safety did not restrict his election campaigning.

Dutton is campaigning to replace Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at elections on May 3. Both leaders are accompanied in public by Australian Federal Police security teams as they crisscross the country for weeks.

“I’m incredibly grateful to the AFP that my family are kept safe. I’ve never felt unsafe one day in this job, particularly with the protection from the AFP. It hasn’t stopped me from doing anything, and it won’t on this campaign,” Dutton told reporters in Perth.

“This job is about a test of character: Do you have the strength of character regardless of what’s thrown at you to deal with the issues and to act in our country’s best interests?” Dutton added.

Teenage boy charged with terror plot

Dutton’s security came into focus after a 16-year-old boy was ordered on Thursday to stand trial in the Queensland state Supreme Court in Brisbane charged with planning a terrorist act.

The boy was arrested in August last year and cannot be named because of his age. He faces a potential life sentence if convicted.

Dutton’s home, where he lives with his wife and three children on Brisbane’s outskirts, had been the target of the alleged plot involving explosives and a drone, unnamed sources told The Australian newspaper on Friday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had reached out to Dutton over the news. Albanese said he had also been the target of a “pretty serious incident,” but declined to elaborate.

“It is a fact that the number of threats that have been made to parliamentarians has increased in recent times,” Albanese told reporters in Darwin.

“There’s no place whatsoever in politics for any of this and I have ensured that any time any member of parliament, regardless of who they are, have asked for support, that that have received it,” Albanese added.

Threats against Australian lawmakers on the rise

Albanese’s Sydney office is one of several lawmakers’ offices that have been vandalized by pro-Palestinian activists since the Israel-Hamas war began in 2023.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw told a senate committee last month that police responded to 1,009 threats against lawmakers in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

That total was on track to be surpassed in the current fiscal year, which began in July 2024, with 712 threats reported by March, he said.

Dutton’s conservative Liberal Party campaign spokesperson James Paterson said the opposition leader’s family “require around-the-clock personal police protection.”

Dutton said he had been receiving the same level of protection as a prime minister since 2014 when he was made minister for immigration and border protection and began deporting criminals.

“I canceled the visas of a lot of bikies and rapists and organized crime figures and I wouldn’t change that,” Dutton said. “There’s been an impact on my family. They’ve been stoic and never complained about the security that’s been around me and my family.”