Peter Dutton has claimed to be a victim of Labor’s “misrepresentation” of his comments about Lebanese-Muslim immigration in the 1970s – while continuing to argue that the facts are “indisputable”.
The immigration minister told 2GB and then journalists at a press conference in Canberra on Thursday that the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, had “sought to completely misrepresent what I said” about Malcolm Fraser’s decision in the 1970s to allow Lebanese Muslim migrants to come to Australia.
Dutton categorised his own observations made first on Sky News, and then in parliament on Monday, as calling out “the small number within the community – within the Lebanese community – who are doing the wrong thing”.
“If we do that, we can hold up the vast majority of people within the Lebanese community who work as hard as you and I do, who have contributed to society, who are captains of industry, people that have worked hard, provided their kids with an education,” he said.
He said while Shorten had sought to be politically correct, he himself had relied on facts. “The facts here are indisputable, which is why I feel comfortable where I am. I’m on safe ground because I’ve relied on the facts. If people don’t understand the history, then they will make the same mistakes into the future.”
The controversy was ignited by Dutton’s appearance last week on a Sky News program hosted by the News Corp blogger and broadcaster Andrew Bolt. The minister said, without nominating particular groups, that Fraser should not have allowed various migrants to come to Australia in the 1970s.
“Clearly mistakes have been made in the past,” he said. “The reality is that Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in in the 1970s and we’re seeing that today. We need to be honest in having that discussion.”
In parliament on Monday Shorten asked Dutton to specify who he was talking about. “Which people, from which country, does the minister believe should not have been allowed into Australia when Mr Fraser was prime minister?” he asked.
In response, Dutton replied: “I thank the leader of the opposition for his question. The advice that I have is that, out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 are from second- and third-generation Lebanese Muslim backgrounds.”
Dutton went on to say he was “not going to allow people who are hardworking, who have done the right thing by this country, who have contributed, who have worked hard and who have educated their children to be defined by those people who are doing the wrong thing and have been charged with terrorist offences or have been involved in crime otherwise”.
He also said: “I am not going to shy away from the facts. I hold up those people who have come from all walks of life – the Vietnamese who came in; people who have come in from Asia and from war-torn Europe; people who have come in from Lebanon and otherwise.
“Many people who have built this country over many decades deserve to be praised – but I am going to call out those people who are doing the wrong thing. If we pretend otherwise, my judgment is that we only compound these problems.”
In parliamentary debates this week Shorten has attacked Dutton for his observations, arguing that singling out a particular ethnic group complicates the task for Australia’s security agencies trying to deal with the risks associated with radicalisation.
The Labor leader is not Dutton’s only critic. He was attacked by Fraser’s immigration minister, Ian Macphee, who called his observations “outrageous” and a deliberate attempt to chase negative headlines.
Macphee placed Dutton in the same category as the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, who opposes Muslim immigration, and Bolt, declaring them “ignorant, alarmist voices”. He said the community anger in response to the immigration minister’s comments was justified.
On Wednesday Shorten, while responding to the prime minister’s national security statement, accused Dutton of engaging in “loud lazy disrespect” and said the immigration minister’s observation about Lebanese-Muslim migrants was “profoundly wrong”.
He said Dutton’s comments had the potential to “aid and abet the isolation and resentment that the extremists pray upon”.
“The comments weren’t just a repudiation of the success of Australia, a nation made great by migration and multiculturalism,” he said. “The minister’s comments – his ignorant comments – contradict and undermine and fly in the face of every briefing I have ever received from our security agencies who explain to us how best to counter radicalisation about defeating extremism.”
Asked at a press conference in Canberra on Thursday to specify precisely how he had been misrepresented by Shorten, Dutton pointed to the Labor leader’s response to Wednesday’s national security statement.
The minister also criticised Shorten for not asking him a question during parliamentary question time on Wednesday, after he had made the arguments in the security statement.
“I think Mr Shorten needs to step up, admit that he’s made a mistake,” Dutton said, noting that there had been “a lot of hysteria”.
Asked again to specify the precise nature of the misrepresentation by Shorten, Dutton said the Labor party had “embarked on this very tricky approach”.
“I’m saying to you that Mr Shorten has been very tricky … and I think he needs to set the record straight today.”
On Sky News on Thursday morning the Greens senator Nick McKim said he was sure Dutton had quoted accurately the numbers of people from a Lebanese Muslim background to be charged with terrorism-related offences.
“But just because something is fact doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable or productive to talk about it,” McKim said.
“So what we’ve got is a deliberate attack from Mr Dutton by quoting these numbers on a particular subsection of the Australian community. In this case Lebanese Muslim-Australians.”
Dutton told reporters McKim’s comments demonstrated “duplicity and a trickiness, and I think Bill Shorten has a lot to answer for”.
