Malcolm Fraser’s immigration minister, Ian Macphee, has excoriated the current occupant of the portfolio, Peter Dutton, branding his recent reflection on the immigration policies of the 1970s “outrageous”, and declaring the Liberal party “has long since ceased to be liberal”.



Macphee’s statement on Wednesday followed Dutton’s incendiary observation in question time on Monday that Fraser should not have let Lebanese Muslims into Australia in the 1970s because a small number of people in subsequent generations had been charged with terrorism-related offences.

The prime minister on Tuesday declined three opportunities to rebuke Dutton for his comment, praising the immigration minister’s performance in the portfolio.

Macphee declared in his statement that Dutton had hit a new low in standards of recent immigration ministers, and accused him of deliberately chasing headlines via an interview with the “extremist” Andrew Bolt, the News Corp blogger and Sky News broadcaster.

“The Fraser government honoured international law and morality,” Macphee said in the statement. “From the Howard government onwards these have been increasingly discarded.”

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”; and he said the community anger in response to the immigration minister’s comments was justified.

“Dutton’s words offended them, especially as they attacked Malcolm Fraser, for whom they have profound respect and whose policies enabled them to integrate with and expand the understanding of other Australians of the rich, diversified culture that Australia has due to the contribution of migrants and refugees,” he said.

The prime minister used a national security statement to parliament on Wednesday to argue an “inclusive society” was a vital element in countering the rise of violent extremism.

Turnbull told parliament terrorist groups sought to identify weakness and vulnerability and to “drive and exploit fear and division”.

“Actions and behaviours that target particular sections in society merely play into their hands. We are one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world.”

“As I have said many times, the glue that holds us together is mutual respect – the recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity and opportunities.”

But Labor took the opportunity of the security statement and a separate debate in the federation chamber to criticise Dutton for his intervention.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, accused Dutton of engaging in “loud lazy disrespect” and he said the immigration minister’s observation about Lebanese-Muslim migrants was “profoundly wrong”.

Shorten said the 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. 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.”

In the federation chamber, Sydney-based Labor frontbencher Tony Burke said you had to go back to the time of the White Australia policy to find a minister making an argument that particular communities should be excluded from entry on the basis of race or religion.

He said the comments from Dutton gave a people “a sense of licence and permission to abuse their fellow citizens” – and he said that abuse had already commenced.

Burke said he believed Dutton’s statement would win him votes, but “I don’t care”.

He said it was time for political leaders to lead and bring the country together, and to cease equivocations about multiculturalism. A multicultural Australia was either a concept you signed up to or rejected, Burke said.

Labor backbencher and anti-radicalisation expert Anne Aly – who was born in Egypt, not Lebanon – has received death threats on her Facebook page which are currently being investigated by the Australian Federal Police.

She has also been the subject of abusive emails.

An email sent to her office on November 22, with the subject line “Leb thugs”, says the following: “Peter Dutton was right. Pack your bags and piss off back to where you came from and take all of your terrorist faith with you.”