Peter Dutton flew to Perth for one hour at lavish Gina Rinehart birthday party then back to cost-of-living campaign in Dunkley

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, reportedly flew to Perth for just an hour to attend the 70th birthday party of the mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, flying an overnight round-trip cross-country before returning to Melbourne to campaign on cost-of-living issues ahead of the Dunkley byelection.

The lavish celebration for Australia’s richest woman, according to her company’s websites, included “a horse show backed by the fantastic Aussie music, ‘The Man from Snowy River’, with riders … carrying large Australian and company flags”, with photos from the event showing multiple large cakes and on-stage pyrotechnics.

Dutton’s latest trip west to pay homage to the Hancock Prospecting billionaire has raised questions among Labor MPs and usual media supporters of the Liberal leader, with the 2GB host Ben Fordham asking why he had not chosen to instead spend more time campaigning in Dunkley.

The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday that Dutton attended Rinehart’s party on Thursday night at the end of the parliamentary sitting week. Dutton was back in Dunkley on Friday morning, with the AFR reporting there was a set of Qantas flights which could have taken him from Canberra to Perth then back to Melbourne.

The newspaper reported Dutton’s office said he “travelled commercially at his own expense”. Guardian Australia contacted Dutton’s office for comment.

The Perth lord mayor, Basil Zempilas, told 6PR radio he attended the event, calling the horseback show “an incredible sight”, and saying the pop star Guy Sebastian had sung the national anthem.

Last year Dutton was flown to a party at Hancock’s Pilbara mine by another billionaire rich-lister, where he praised Rinehart and her family as “pioneers” who had “given so much to this country”.

Anthony Albanese recently came under scrutiny for attending a private event at the Melbourne mansion of the recycling billionaire Anthony Pratt, where the pop star Katy Perry performed, the day after he attended Taylor Swift’s Sydney concert. Albanese tried to shrug off questions about the lavish event, saying it was “an annual event and it’s an opportunity to talk to manufacturers”.

The opposition has consistently criticised Albanese for his overseas travel and attending entertainment events such as sporting fixtures and concerts.

In a Sky News interview on Friday morning from Dunkley, Dutton criticised Albanese’s travel at the end of 2023, claiming “you’ve been spending half your life overseas”.

In a subsequent press conference, Dutton went on to claim: “[Albanese] spent months and months overseas, people are angry with him because they thought that he probably should have got the house in order before he jumped on the plane.”

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The Liberal campaign for Dunkley focused heavily on cost-of-living pressures. Dutton expressed concern for “a lot of families here in Dunkley, but across the country, who are struggling at the moment”.

In the press conference, Dutton noted he had visited Dunkley five times during the campaign. Labor had criticised Dutton for not visiting the seat on the night of the byelection.

On 2GB on Monday, Fordham called Dutton’s decision “a bad call” and suggested he should have “brushed” the party to campaign more in Dunkley.

“People often make up their minds in the final 48 hours. You need to be there. You don’t need to be going to WA for a birthday party. Peter Dutton spent more time on the aeroplane than he did at the party, which sounds like a waste of time to me,” Fordham said.

Dutton’s office did not give any media alert that he would attend Rinehart’s event, nor distribute any transcript of remarks he made, nor was any post made on the leader’s social media pages.

The Labor MP Julian Hill tweeted: “Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell Australians what he’s up to?”