Making “extreme rightwing” MP Andrew Nikolic head of a powerful intelligence committee will threaten the bipartisanship associated with security matters, Labor warns.

Nikolic, a first-term MP for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, was appointed early on Thursday morning to chair the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS) .

Labor is opposed to his appointment, saying Nikolic will be divisive and use the position to push an ideological agenda.

“Bipartisanship is put at risk by Mr Nikolic who has made his political career out of being a highly partisan, highly aggressive battler for extreme rightwing views,” the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, told ABC Radio.

Nikolic brushed aside Labor’s concerns over the direction of the PJCIS, which he has been part of for two years.

“It has been bipartisan; it will continue to be bipartisan,” he told Guardian Australia. “The focus should be on issues, not personalities.”

Nikolic, a 31-year veteran of the Australian army, says he is “well suited by background and temperament” to take on the role.

He strongly refutes suggestions that the committee is politicised, pointing to the fact that it has produced five bipartisan reports in the past.

But Dreyfus says national security is too important to be the “political plaything of internal machination” by installing Nikolic – an Abbott supporter – in the influential role.



“What we see here is Mr Turnbull again, regrettably, pandering to the extreme right of his party,” he said.

The former head of the committee, Dan Tehan, is also an Abbott supporter. He had to give up the role after being promoted to the ministry earlier this month.

Tehan backed Nikolic and blasted Labor for its “distasteful” decision to raise objections to the appointment.

“Why are the Labor party bringing this type of thing up? What we need to be focussing on is the national security of the nation, of us all working together to make sure the nation is safe,” he told ABC Radio. “I really think that this is a pathetic attempt of cheap politics.”

Tehan said Nikolic will do an “outstanding job as chair”.

Nikolic has courted controversy in the past by taking a hardline approach to Australians who support terrorism at home or abroad, and for saying that Iran could be a more dangerous force than extremist group Isis.

The Australian Conservation Foundation also threatened Nikolic with litigation over comments alleging the environmental group had engaged in “illegal activities”, during a debate to strip lobby groups of their tax deductible status.