Home affairs minister accuses Greens of trying to extract a political advantage from the mosque shootings

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Peter Dutton has accused the Greens of being “just as bad” as extreme right-wing nationalist senator Fraser Anning, claiming both are seeking to extract political advantage from the Christchurch terror attack.

On Monday the home affairs minister equated the Greens holding him accountable for stoking anti-Islamic sentiment with Anning’s comments blaming the attack on Muslim immigration.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi responded that it was “vile” to say the comments were in any way equivalent, while Labor leader in the Senate Penny Wong accused him of “normalising hate speech”.

Since the attack on Friday the Greens have gone on the front foot with leader Richard Di Natale renewing calls for a parliamentary code of conduct to stamp out hate speech and Faruqi, the first Muslim senator in Australia, criticising conservative politicians for stoking hatred.

Greens demand hate speech by MPs be stamped out after Christchurch massacre Read more

“It is politicians like Peter Dutton who have actually contributed to creating an atmosphere where hate is allowed to incubate in our society,” Faruqi told Radio National. “They can’t shrug off their responsibility.”

“What they’ve been doing does come with a cost, it does come with consequences, because really they’ve been playing games with our lives.”

Asked if he has any regrets for his past conduct, Dutton told Radio National he regrets that a spotlight is given to “people like Fraser Anning or like this senator [Faruqi]”.

“The comments she’s made and the desire to extract some sort of political advantage or attention seeking out of this circumstance, I think is appalling.”

He also cited Di Natale as another person who is given attention “they don’t deserve”.

Dutton said it was “a disgrace” that people “on the far left or far right [are] trying to extract advantage” while families are “burying the bodies of those who have been massacred in Christchurch”.

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In 2016 Dutton suggested that the former prime minister Malcolm Fraser should not have let people of “Lebanese-Muslim” background into Australia – citing as evidence a small cohort of individuals who have been charged with terrorism offences.

At the time Labor warned the comments amounted to “going to war” on the local community and would dismay security agencies.

Asked about these comments, the home affairs minister said he did not regret them and rejected the view they encourage white supremacy.

Dutton said the Australian government settles people of “all sorts of faith” and the left hates him because of Operation Sovereign Borders, Australia’s harsh policies of deterrence of asylum seekers including boat turnbacks and offshore detention criticised as inhumane and unlawful by the United Nations.

Dutton defended calling asylum seekers who come by boat “illegals” because “to come to our country by boat is illegal”, although he conceded “to seek refuge is not”.

“I’m hardly going to take morals lectures from the extreme left, who frankly are just as bad in this circumstance as people like Fraser Anning, they should equally be condemned.”

Wong, Labor’s leader in the Senate, accused Dutton of “normalising hate speech”, noting that “political criticism is not the same as blaming Muslims for this terrorist act”.

Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) Stop normalising hate speech Peter. Political criticism is not the same as blaming Muslims for this terrorist act. Now is the time for decent politicians to show some ethical leadership. Our democracy requires it. https://t.co/iQtZ3UPaMU

Faruqi said Dutton’s “tone deaf” comments proved he was not fit for the job of home affairs minister.

“He still refuses to take responsibility for his role in demonising Muslims, migrants and refugees,” she told Guardian Australia.

“Trying to claim that my response to the horrific massacre and Senator Anning’s disgraceful comments that harm our community are in any way equivalent is just vile.”

Labor and the Coalition have agreed to a bipartisan censure motion of Anning, who said the mosque attack highlighted a “growing fear over an increasing Muslim presence” in Australian and New Zealand communities.

At a press conference on Monday, Anning brushed off his likely censure, likening it to a “flogging with … [a] lace hanky”.

Pauline Hanson – the leader of One Nation on whose ticket Anning was elected at a recount election – told Channel Seven’s Sunrise she would abstain from the censure motion. “It won’t prove anything,” she said.

Hanson denied being a white supremacist, forced to defend her record on race issues on the very program that boosted her profile before she was elected to the Senate in 2016. Once elected, Hanson then called for an end to Muslim migration and wore a burqa into the Senate.

A Change.org petition calling for Anning to be removed from the Senate has reached more than 1.1m signatures, although parliament would first need to change the law to allow such a removal to give it effect.

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The Greens have widened the political attack beyond Anning, with Di Natale arguing he “is not a lone voice in our parliament” and more needs to be done to prevent “hateful rhetoric”.

Dutton insisted that counter-terror agencies have been “very conscious” of the threat of rightwing extremism, claiming their focus is on “people who seek to do us harm” wherever they lie on the political spectrum.

Explaining why the Australian suspect, Brenton Tarrant, was not on any Australian terror watchlist, Dutton noted he had spent just 45 days in Australia in the last three years.

On Sunday the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said the Christchurch event “hasn’t happened in isolation”, blaming unnamed “extreme-right politicians” and “keyboard warriors who hide behind the internet” for fomenting hatred.

Shorten warned that people who have perpetuated “extreme rightwing hatred” could not “disown what crawls out of your swamp”.

The Coalition has a patchy record on confronting white nationalism, after government senators voted for a motion that it is “OK to be white” in October only to later claim this was an “administrative error”.

Prime minister Scott Morrison himself as shadow immigration minister reportedly told shadow cabinet in 2011 the Coalition should do more to capitalise on concerns about Muslim immigration, comments which he now denies.

In August the outgoing racial discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane warned that “race politics is back” and criticised Turnbull government ministers for their rhetoric on African gangs and ethnic separatism.

Soutphommasane cited Dutton’s calls for “special attention” for white South African farmers, then citizenship minister Alan Tudge’s claim that Australia is veering towards a “European separatist multicultural model”, and Dutton’s suggestion Melburnians are afraid to go out to dinner due to African youth crime.

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