Key Points
- Opposition leader Peter Dutton has justified "racist" comments he made in 2016 about Lebanese Muslims.
- He said there was an "overrepresentation" of "people who were radicalised."
- The Settlement Council of Australia said, "bigotry has no place in our country, let alone in Australian parliament."
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has justified "racist" comments he made in 2016 about Lebanese Muslims migrating to Australia, insisting there was an "over-representation" of "people who were radicalised".
Asked about the remarks on ABC TV's Kitchen Cabinet, Dutton said that he made them in the context of "terrorist attacks thwarted in Australia" while he was Immigration Minister.
"Yeah, well, again, at the time it was in the context of an attempted attack on an A380, to bring down an A380 (aeroplane). There were a number of terrorist attacks that were thwarted in our country and there was an over-representation. And you can sort of tiptoe around it and pretend that it’s not an issue," Dutton replied.
Two Sydney men with links to Islamic State were jailed in 2019 for trying to blow up an international flight from Sydney in 2017, though it is unclear if this is the attempted attack Dutton was referring to. His office has been contacted by SBS News for comment.
Host Annabel Crabb said there’s no getting around the fact that it was a "racist remark".
Dutton said they were "comments that I shouldn’t have made".
"I've apologised for that. But again, when you’re in the thrust of it and in the thick of it, we were dealing with people who had been radicalised and many of them shared a background and that's sort of the factual reality of what we were dealing with."
In response to Dutton's comments on the program, the Settlement Council of Australia said: "Bigotry has no place in our country, let alone in Australian parliament."
The council, which is the peak body for services helping refugees and migrants settle in Australia, said: "Politicians especially should carefully consider the ripple effects of comments they make about minority faith and cultural communities.
"Politicians and leaders have a responsibility to foster an inclusive society, and offhand comments that discriminate against migrants can cause deep harm to communities."
Migrants positively contribute to the social, economic, and cultural fabric of our country, the organisation said.
What did Peter Dutton say in 2016?
In November 2016, Dutton suggested former prime minister Malcolm Fraser made a mistake in allowing Lebanese Muslims to migrate to Australia in the 1970s.
Dutton said the descendants of these migrants represented a large portion of those who had recently travelled overseas as foreign fighters.
"The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second and third-generation Lebanese-Muslim background," he said in parliament.
The week before he said "there was a mistake made" in regards to Australia's migration program.
"The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we're seeing that today," he told Sky News at the time.
"Lessons from past migrant programs should be learnt for people settling in Australia today."
His comments were widely condemned by Labor and the Greens as well as by Muslim groups and individuals in Australia.
What else did Dutton say on Kitchen Cabinet?
Dutton said that while he regretted boycotting former prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology to Stolen Generations, he stood by comments he made in 2018 linking crime to the South Sudanese population.
Following the stabbing murder of Laa Chol in Melbourne in July 2018, Dutton blamed "Victoria's gang problem" for the woman's death and said Melburnians were afraid to go out to restaurants due to violence perpetrated by South Sudanese people.
"There is a major law and order problem in Victoria and more people are going to be hurt until the rule of law is enforced by the Victorian Government," he told The Age. "We don’t have these problems with Sudanese gangs in NSW or Queensland."
But on Monday's program, Dutton said the events did relate to a particular community.
"I'd made that comment after speaking to friends in Melbourne because there were incidents where people had cars stolen or people going into restaurants and ... creating havoc," he said.
"The incidents in Victoria at the time were related to kids, predominantly from a particular community."
He said his statements weren't meant as a slight or as a slight against Victoria.
"It didn't come from a place of hatred ... it came from a place of seeing people suffering at the hands of crime and that's what motivated me.
"So could it have been said more sensitively? Yes, of course. And do you learn from your mistakes? You're a fool not to."
Dutton also described First Nations people in Alice Springs as living in "absolute squalor".
"If you go to East Arnhem Land, kids at school 90 per cent of the time they’ve got an attendance rate equivalent to what we would see in a capital city," Dutton said.
He said there were employment programs and "up in Yunupingu land ... a functioning society."
"It's quite remarkable that you hop on the plane and then go to Alice Springs and people living in town camps or in absolute squalor. The health system's not functioning. The law-and-order system is not functioning. And there’s a complete breakdown.
"And it is literally heartbreaking."
