Malcolm Fraser made mistakes in bringing some migrants to Australia and the country is paying for that now, Peter Dutton has said.

The immigration minister made the comments in an interview with Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt, who repeatedly questioned whether it was an error to “let in” people from Middle Eastern and African nations or cultural groups.

Dutton appeared to connect the immigration program of the 1970s – which saw people arrive mainly from Lebanon, Chile and the Czech republic – with allegations of Sudanese men committing crime, and the descendants of immigrants leaving Australia to fight in the Middle East.

“If there is a particular problem that people can point to within a certain community, and we’re talking about a significant number of people in that community who are doing the wrong thing, then clearly mistakes have been made in the past,” he said.

“The reality is that Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in in the 1970s and we’re seeing that today. We need to be honest in having that discussion.”

Thursday’s interview began with a discussion about an alleged crime wave in Victoria which Bolt said was largely down to “young men of African descent”, in particular from Sudan.

Dutton said it was a worrying law and order issue, and the Victorian government was weak on crime.

Bolt responded: “No doubt the law and order issue is very big and the lack of policing is very big, and I have noticed that you have thrown out or intend to throw out some people back to Africa, but this is reacting afterwards.”

Bolt said Fraser got the Lebanese refugee program wrong and asked if there was “another mistake” made with Sudanese refugees.

Dutton said it was an “open question” what proportion of the Sudanese community was involved, but noted an “interesting aspect” of immigration that young people going to fight in the Middle East were often born in Australia to migrant or refugee parents.

“So we need to have a proper look at what has gone wrong and clearly something has gone wrong,” he said.

“We do review the [immigration] program each year, and if we feel there are problems with particular cohorts, particular nationalities, particular people who might not be integrating well and not contributing well, then there are many other worthy recipients who seek to come to a country like ours and make an opportunity their own.”

Dutton against criticised the Victorian government on law and order, and Bolt again said he agreed with Dutton on those issues, “but the point really is … with a lot of these cases I often ask, who let them in? They shouldn’t be posing a problem in the first place”.

Bolt questioned if it was a mistake to bring in people from an “imported” culture if their children struggled to fit i, and if the government’s one-off Syrian refugee intake was a risk.

Dutton pointed to the government’s “slow pace” of processing refugees because it was conducting security checks, and said a high proportion of those accepted would be from persecuted minorities like Syrian Christians.



Australia saw high levels of humanitarian immigration from Lebanon and Asia under then Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser. In 2007 Fraser rejected any link between issues with his Lebanese migration program and current racial tensions, after cabinet documents released by the national archives found he was warned against increasing the intake at the time.

By 1980 more than 16,000 Lebanese people had arrived under humanitarian immigration policies enacted in response to the country’s 1976 civil war. A draft government document leaked earlier this year – and criticised by the opposition as verging on bigotry and racism – singled out the Lebanese community in connection with Australian-based Sunni extremists.

In the 10 years to 1985 more than 95,000 Indochinese refugees were also processed for resettlement in Australia, largely in response to the Vietnam war. About 50,000 people arrived as refugees from Vietnam including on boats.

Australia’s acceptance of Sudanese refugees largely began in the late 1990s, with the highest number just 10 years ago. More than 20,000 people have settled in Australia from Sudan.

An immigration department document which cites 2011 research on the economic, social and civic contributions of first and second-generation humanitarian entrants, found that “they demonstrated a greater commitment to life in Australia compared to other migrants”.