How un-Australian can you get? Lawyers providing pro bono services to refugees are hopelessly “un-Australian”, according to Peter Dutton, the minister for immigration and border protection.

Yet, the minister’s crass joke about Pacific island nations being threatened by rising sea waters is not un-Australian, nor are comments about “illiterate ... innumerate” refugees taking Australian jobs; or describing a female reporter in the Canberra press gallery as a “mad fucking witch”; or refusing an abortion to a pregnant asylum seeker after she had been raped.

They all meet Australian standards, according to Dutton’s skewed grasp of decency. This year he tried to reset the rule of law in a way more favourable to his doggedly inflexibility and boundless ambition. He declared that members of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal were ideologically motived and for good measure Queensland magistrates were “hopeless leftwing softies”.

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This from a minister who is out of his depth when it comes to understanding how the AAT functions in immigration and refugee cases (among other things he believes the tribunal hands down “sentences”). It’s a lack of understanding not confined to his job as immigration minister but harks back to his time as health minister where a survey of doctors found Dutton to be the worst health minister in 35 years.

Quite apart from questions about his ability there are issues of character that go to the way he exercises his overreaching authority. There is a real question whether someone so devoid of empathy is a fit and proper person to be handed wide, discretionary and unreviewable powers as the new minister for home affairs.

Liberty Victoria described his current responsibilities as minister for immigration and border protection as “problematic ministerial powers” or the “God powers”.

He has wide discretions over people’s lives with limited or no options for review or challenge. He can send people to indefinite offshore or onshore detention, he can turn boats back at sea, he can hold people on the high seas, he can grant visas, he can deny visas, and he can send people back to places they are fleeing.

His current portfolio goes beyond immigration and refugee matters, extending to tariff classifications, imports, exports, customs, citizenship and security at airports and ports. The portfolio of immigration and border protection vests this minister with the greatest number of ministerial public interest or national interest powers: 47 in total, according to Liberty Victoria’s study.

Dutton is responsible for the administration of 20 acts or parts of acts. The attorney general, on the other hand, is responsible for 152 acts, yet his public interest or national interest discretionary powers at 38 are fewer than Dutton’s. To get an idea of the comparable scale of authority, the defence portfolio is responsible for the administration of one more piece of legislation than the minister for immigration and border protection, and yet there are only two public interest or national interest powers that come within the authority of the defence minister and three for the prime minister.

Thirteen years ago, a Senate select committee found “there was a pressing need for reform” of ministerial discretions under the Migration Act. The committee said:

... vesting a non-delegable, non-reviewable and non-compellable discretion with the immigration minister without an adequate accountability mechanism creates both the possibility and perception of corruption.

Dutton is in a league of his own with the discretionary powers he can exercise as immigration minister – without accountability or transparency. As home affairs minister the range and reach of his discretions over people’s lives will expand alarmingly.

The details of the ministerial arrangements have not yet been settled, but we do know that the new home affairs portfolio will retain immigration and border protection and will take from the attorney general’s and justice departments, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation and the Australian federal police.

Also to be transferred to home affairs from the attorney general’s department are the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, the Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre, Emergency Management Australia including the Crisis Coordination Centre, the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Critical Infrastructure Centre.

The Office of Transport Security will also be shifted to Dutton from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development. It is not certain at this stage whether the terrorism provisions under the Criminal Code 1995 or under division 3A of the Crimes Act will also go to home affairs and Dutton.

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Canberra-based law researcher Peta Leigh has identified the powers under the Asio Act that the minister can exercise, including:

Issuing warrants if he has reasonable grounds for believing that Asio’s access to premises will assist intelligence collection. This extends to personal frisk searches and the removal and retention of records and computer data – section 25(2).

Issuing specific computer access warrants – section 25A.

Issuing surveillance device warrants, which includes the tracking of a person and surveillances of places where the target is believed to be located – section 26.

Authorising the inspection of postal articles – section 27.

Warrants to service providers, including internet service providers, to deliver contents and articles – section 27AA.

Identified person warrants, giving Asio access to records, computer data, use of surveillance devices, and access to postal articles – “for any time period”. Section 27C.

Dutton will be able to issue warrants for questioning and detention in police custody.

Then there is the Australian federal police where Dutton as the responsible minister will be able to give directions to the commissioner “with respect to the general policy to be pursued in relation to the performance of functions by the AFP”.

It’s all together too awesome an array of powers in the hands of one person, made all the more dangerous by this minister’s lack of understanding and respect for the rule of law.

The minister parades this insistence on the absoluteness of his authority in the name of “keeping Australians safe”. Safe from what? Certainly we’re not safe from his autocratic tendencies.