Peter Dutton says Labor ‘fabricated’ transcript but MP says it was a ‘genuine mistake’ by her staff

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Labor frontbencher Linda Burney has admitted her office made “a mistake” incorrectly transcribing an interview, omitting her call for a “time limit” on how long people were held in offshore immigration detention.

The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has accused Labor of deliberately fabricating the transcript, which was written by the shadow human services minister’s staff and distributed by Bill Shorten’s office.

On Wednesday, Burney fronted an interview on Sky News and was grilled by host David Speers about whether there should be a time limit to take refugees off Nauru and Manus Island, a motion set to be debated at the Victorian Labor conference on the weekend and possibly the national conference in July.

Burney replied: “I’m not responsible for the area, but I do – I’m very passionate about it, as are many people – I think that we are saying most clearly that there shouldn’t be indefinite detention.”

“Now that obviously says there needs to be a time frame and I’m sure there are people who are working towards that ... I think there needs to be a time limit.”

In the transcript distributed by Labor on Wednesday night, Burney was quoted as saying “I’m not responsible for the area, but I do believe that they shouldn’t be held indefinitely, and logically that means there’d be a time line”.

Victorian Labor conference to debate ending offshore immigration processing Read more

References to Burney’s support for a “time limit” were omitted in the transcript.

At an impromptu doorstop on Thursday, Burney said it was “a genuine mistake by a person in my office and I think we have been very clear about that”.

In a further statement she said it was “an error in my office and was unintentional”.

“The staff member involved has been counselled about the mistake. No other office had any role – it was solely my office’s responsibility for transcribing the interview and checking its accuracy.”

Coalition_Media (@Coalition_Media) Issued transcript: 1034 words.



Actual transcript: 1852 words.



That’s some unintentional error! https://t.co/y92BAhG06E

Dutton said the transcript had “gone through Bill Shorten’s office” and had been “cleared by senior people”, and called on Shorten to explain. Shorten’s office maintains its only role is distributing transcripts written by shadow ministers’ media officers.

“This is not some mistake by somebody transcribing and can’t understand garbled words within a tape recording,” Dutton said. “This is a deliberate act of fabrication.”

“Linda Burney has presided over a fraudulent document going out, purporting to be something that it is not.”

“How can Mr Shorten trust [someone] on his frontbench who has deliberately lied in relation to what she said? And this is not a clarification, not an improvement on grammar. It is a fabrication, pure and simple.”

The home affairs minister said that Labor’s policy had “completely unravelled”. He suggested Labor would emerge from its conference with a “flashy statement” to pretend that it supports the Coalition’s Operation Sovereign Borders policy but it will be “a complete and utter dodgy deal and nobody should believe it”.

On Wednesday, Guardian Australia reported that the Victorian Labor conference will debate an urgency motion drafted by Labor for Refugees, which calls on the ALP, “when in federal government, to close offshore detention centres, transit centres and other camps on Manus and Nauru within the first 90 days, and to bring all the children, women and men who are refugees or seeking asylum remaining there to Australia”.

The looming Victorian push follows a decision by the new Labor MP Ged Kearney to use her first speech to parliament to promise to campaign internally for a more humane policy on refugees.

Kearney told parliament this week that Australia could afford to take more refugees but it could not afford “the ongoing cost to our national psyche” of subjecting asylum seekers to “shameful” indefinite detention in offshore immigration centres.

She said people now detained on Manus Island and Nauru must be permanently resettled “as a priority” but her speech did not specify whether that resettlement should be in Australia or in a third country.

It is still unclear what specific motions will be brought to the July national conference because the process of selecting delegates is not yet complete.