Former prime minister Paul Keating has urged voters to drive a stake through the “dark political heart” of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

In his second appearance in the federal election campaign, the 1990s Labor leader said he had never seen a public figure as mean as Mr Dutton.

“Those electors in Dickson [in Queensland] have a chance to drive the political stake through his dark political heart … and I hope they do,” Mr Keating told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

“I’ve never seen any public figure as mean or mean-spirited as Peter Dutton.”

In response to Mr Keating, Mr Dutton took to Twitter later on Tuesday to suggest the former PM had “almost destroyed my dad’s small business”.

Paul Keating almost destroyed my Dad’s small business with his heartless mismanagement of the economy & he inspired me to join the Liberal Party.

— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) May 14, 2019

“It’s why I’m so passionate about not letting Bill Shorten repeat history and drive a stake through the hearts of small businesses around the country with his higher taxes,” Mr Dutton added.

In his radio interview, Mr Keating went on to attack the wider Liberal Party as he backed Opposition Leader Bill Shorten for victory at the polls on Saturday.

“What’s amazing about the Liberal Party [is] they’ve actually made a virtue of having no strategy,” he said.

He also blamed Liberal leadership changes for voter disillusionment.

“This is what happens when governments fail to have a program, fail to have imagination, fail to have vista, a panorama of where the country is going,” he said.

“Particularly when you see these internecine battles like the ones between Turnbull and Abbott and then Morrison replacing Turnbull. People get switched off by the internecine battles, the ideological confusion, the lack of clarity of policy and of course they drift to the minor parties.”

Scott Morrison was just “the guy next door” who would jump the fence and do a barbecue and pull on a baseball cap, Mr Keating noted.

“We need more than the guy next door,” he said.

The former PM also used Tuesday’s radio interview to dial back comments referring to Australia’s security agencies as “nutters”, which came after he attended Labor’s campaign launch earlier in May.

“I was sort of speaking in code to the foreign policy and security establishment,” he said of his earlier remarks.

“Important as it is that security agencies and intelligence should not be the currency of Australia’s foreign policy settings.”

Foreign policy should not be based on “dormitory chit-chat” but rather should be based on the tectonic plates of power in the world.

Mr Keating also took a swipe at Senate candidate Clive Palmer, labelling him a politician for the wealthy and criticising his role in blocking legislated superannuation increases, which would have added $100,000 to the funds of average workers since 2001.

“They are dogs these people, really. They have Pal for breakfast, they are D.O.G.S.”, he said.

Mr Keating also said the Coalition’s plan to introduce a 5 per cent deposit scheme for first-home buyers – an election pledge that has been backed by Labor – was a nervous reaction.

There was a risk the deposit scheme would lift prices rather than help those trying to get into the market, he warned.

-AAP