Scott Morrison and Waleed Aly will go head-to-head tonight on The Project after a feud over the TV star repeating claims about Prime Minister’s reported remarks on Muslims.

Aly will sit down with Mr Morrison for half an hour from 6.30pm for a one-on-one, commercial-free, live interview after a week of discussions over a possible appearance, Network Ten confirmed to news.com.au.

The Project co-host took the PM to task in an emotional monologue on Friday over a 2011 report that he suggested exploiting anti-Muslim sentiment in a shadow cabinet meeting a year earlier.

Live. Commercial-free. One on one.



Waleed Aly sits down with Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP.



Tonight on #TheProjectTV from 6.30 on @Channel10AU pic.twitter.com/hQVebbSu6k — The Project (@theprojecttv) March 21, 2019

The moment was dragged back into the spotlight after Aly gave an anguished commentary following the Christchurch shooting of 50 mosque worshippers by an Australian terrorist.

Mr Morrison thought Aly’s remarks were “wonderful” — until the three-minute, 30-second mark, when the TV personality said there had been “media reports going back eight years at a shadow cabinet meeting in which another senior politician suggested his party should use community concerns about Muslims in Australia failing to integrate as a political strategy … That person is now the most senior politician we have.”

The Prime Minister described this as “a disgraceful smear and an absolute lie” and was backed by current and former Liberal frontbenchers Peter Dutton, Mr Abbott, Philip Ruddock, David Johnston and Greg Hunt.

Neither Mr Hunt or Mr Abbott were in the room for the meeting.

The claim emerged in a Sydney Morning Herald report from 2011 quoting unnamed sources to the effect that Mr Morrison “urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about ‘Muslim immigration’, ‘Muslims in Australia’ and the ‘inability’ of Muslim migrants to integrate.”

The report said deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop and the former immigration minister Mr Ruddock strongly disagreed with the suggestion.

Two days later, another Herald journalist said in an article headlined “Ugly game of race baiting” that an unnamed Liberal shadow cabinet member had said: “We had all been asked to come up with potential issues we could run with. Scott said, ‘What are we going to do about multiculturalism? What are we going to do about concerns about the number of Muslims?’ He put it on the table like a dead cat.”

The unnamed source said Malcolm Turnbull, Mr Ruddock and others argued against any exploitation of the issues, and Ms Bishop wrapped the debate up by saying: “We have a non-discriminatory immigration policy, and let’s keep it that way.”

Liberal finance spokesman Andrew Robb told the Australian Financial Review at the time: “Scott did talk about the strong feelings in the general community about Muslim immigration, and he said that we as a party had to engage with that sentiment.

“But I’m sure he meant we should engage in a constructive way.”

Mr Morrison dismissed the reports as gossip at the time. “As all journalists know, I don’t comment on shadow cabinet here or anywhere else,” he said. “All I can say is the gossip reported today does not reflect my views.”

There are now disputes over whether Mr Morrison was due to appear on The Project and whether he threatened court action.

The Project co-host Hamish Macdonald — standing in for Aly who was in New Zealand at the invitation of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern — said Mr Morrison’s office had contacted the show after the segment and claimed it was “defamatory” in a “furious exchange”.

PM @ScottMorrisonMP says the claim that at a 2010 shadow cabinet meeting he sought to capitalise on anti-muslim sentiment is an "ugly and repugnant lie". #auspol #qldpol pic.twitter.com/PejKOfYIjs — David Marler (@Qldaah) March 20, 2019

"The PM says he wants the truth. Well, here are some facts." - @hamishnews responds to the PM. #TheProjectTV



*Correction: The first report was in 2011, the Shadow Cabinet meeting was in 2010. pic.twitter.com/r49JRKApK4 — The Project (@theprojecttv) March 20, 2019

Macdonald said The Project had “offered Mr Morrison the opportunity to respond live on this desk when he was due to appear on this program on Monday” but the PM had not only declined, “his media team pulled him out of the scheduled appearance altogether”.

Macdonald mistakenly dated the much-quoted Herald report to 2010, when it was 2011. The program later corrected this.

It is unlikely the Prime Minister would have appeared on Monday, no matter what Aly had said. He had not agreed to appear on The Project and the possibility had been canvassed without a set date.

The program, like others, frequently invites Ms Morrison on, but often decisions are not made until the day of an appearance. The Christchurch terrorism caused an urgent reordering in the Prime Minister’s schedule.

The Government had planned to launch its repackaged immigration policy on Monday, but the atrocity postponed that, and the launch was rescheduled to Wednesday. There is a dispute over whether an appearance had been settled for Wednesday.

There was no threat of a defamation suit from Mr Morrison or his office, but one prime ministerial staffer told the program that in his view, the Aly comments were defamatory.