Immigration minister shares awkward open mic moment with PM after Pacific islands fail to convince Australia to aim for a global warming target of 1.5 degrees

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has shared an awkward open mic moment with the prime minister, Tony Abbott, where he appears to joke about rising sea levels in the Pacific.

Abbott and Dutton were discussing the recent Pacific Islands Forum in Papua New Guinea before a community roundtable at parliament house in Canberra on the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Television cameras had been invited to cover the opening statements of the roundtable.

Pacific island leaders fail to shift Australia and NZ on climate target Read more

The ministers noted that the roundtable attendees were running late, which Dutton labelled “Cape York time”.

Abbott said that meetings in Port Moresby did not run to schedule, either. To which the immigration minister replied: “Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re, you know, about to have water lapping at your door.”

The social services minister, Scott Morrison, who was also in attendance, then pointed out that there was a boom mic – an extendable microphone used to capture sound at a distance – above the ministers.

Pacific leaders voice frustration over Australia's position on climate change Read more

Dutton refused to be drawn on the nature of the conversation, when asked about it at a later press conference. “I had a private conversation with the prime minister. I don’t intend to comment,” he told reporters.

Leaders of neighbouring Pacific nations had put pressure on Australia and New Zealand to do more to stop climate change. The leaders wanted Abbott and his Kiwi counterpart, John Key, to adhere to a limit of a 1.5 degrees celsius temperature increase.

The president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, said stopping climate change was “a matter of survival” for several low-lying Pacific island nations.

Pacific island environmentalists are calling for Dutton’s head. “We request that minister Dutton resigns and that Tony Abbott issues an official apology to all Pacific islanders. We also hope that Australia will offer proper support for and recognition of the impacts that your climate inaction is having upon our culture and our livelihoods,” Koreti Tiumalu, Pacific coordinator of environmental group 350.org, said.

A joint statement issued by the shadow foreign minister, Tanya Plibersek, and her shadow parliamentary secretary, Matt Thistlethwaite, said. “For many in the Pacific islands rising sea levels are having profound effects on their lives, it is destroying crops, and threatening their homes and their very existence.

“Their plight is desperate and all this prime minister can do is laugh about it. Our Pacific island neighbours deserve an apology from Mr Abbott. Their future isn’t a joke, this government is.”

Larissa Waters, deputy leader of the Greens, said: “What else are these clowns saying when the microphones are off? Imagine what cabinet meetings must be like.

“What we’ve seen today is raw contempt for the survival and safety of our Pacific island neighbours and our own coastal communities. We’re talking about peoples’ lives, and this government is laughing.

“It’s a huge diplomatic blunder that will enrage our Pacific island neighbours, who have been calling on Australia to save their homes. What an insult for them to now hear the Australian prime minister laughing at the prospect of their homes going underwater.”

Helen Szoke, the chief executive of Oxfam, said: “As I saw recently with my own eyes in Kiribati, rising seas are a real and present threat to Pacific communities and already a source of immense hardship and anxiety. It beggars belief that minister Dutton and prime minister Abbott would see this as something to joke about.”