This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

Protesters who disrupt traffic should have their welfare payments cut and be subject to mandatory jail sentences, Peter Dutton has declared, as conservative MPs continue to lash out against climate change protests.

Following reports that a repeat protester who had been banned from entering the Brisbane CBD after his seventh arrest came from a wealthy suburb, while others in his cohort were unemployed or students, the home affairs minister agreed with the 2GB radio host Ray Hadley that their welfare payments should be cut.

Dutton also blamed the Queensland government for not going far enough in deterring the protests.

“Community expectation is these people are heavily fined or jailed and they should be jailed until their behaviour changes because they are putting lives at risk,” he told Sydney radio 2GB.

“They’re diverting police and emergency service resources from tasks that they should be undertaking otherwise and they keep turning up week after week because they know a slap on the wrist is just not working.

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“The premier needs to come out and explain why this is acceptable. If there needs to be mandatory or minimum sentences imposed, that can happen overnight in a Queensland parliament.”

The Queensland Labor government introduced new police powers last month in answer to the repeated Extinction Rebellion protests, after peak hour traffic was disrupted by participants gluing themselves to roads.

Dutton called for protesters to be publicly shamed.

“People should take these names and the photos of these people and distribute them as far and wide as they can so that we shame these people.

“Let their families know what you think of their behaviour.”

The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, said legislation was already in place to deal with protesters who broke the law, but the government was going too far in suggesting peaceful protesters have their income stripped.

“Peter Dutton doesn’t know what living in a democracy means,” he told the ABC.

“One of the most fundamental rights in any democracy is the right to speak up and to protest against those in power … It’s starting to sound more like a dictator than he is an elected politician. Because somebody says something that he doesn’t like, that he doesn’t support, he’s saying we’re going to strip away income support.”

Dutton’s comments were the latest in a string of statements from Coalition MPs and ministers urging punitive welfare measures.

On Tuesday, Michaelia Cash backed the withdrawal of Centrelink benefits from a “full time protester” for failing to meet mutual obligation responsibilities.

“In terms of the new compliance system that we brought in, what the compliance system is now showing is that the majority of people actually do the right thing,” she told 2GB.

“So if you do miss a job interview or you know you have a child that gets sick or you’ve got a reasonable excuse, we are able to step in, assist you to overcome that and get you back on the right track. But there still is a component of job seekers who are wilfully not actually discharging their mutual obligation.

“In relation to those people, what we say is the system will help you but if you wilfully and deliberately fail to engage in mutual obligation, then you will have your payment cancelled.”

The Liberal MP Julian Leeser said he supported options that looked at both “carrots and sticks”.

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“We need to look at every available measure to try and get people off welfare and into work,” he told the ABC.

“And I think if people are attending protests rather than looking for work, that that’s not a good thing. I’d rather they spent that time actually engaged in work. You’re not giving up a lot if you are attending a protest when you don’t have a job.

“If you have a job and attend a protest, then you are sacrificing some income. You’re sacrificing some employment time and so on. If you don’t have a job and you’re attending a protest, you’re perhaps giving away less. I really do think we want to focus on creating more jobs and on getting people off welfare and into work.”

The Labor MP Stephen Jones said Leeser’s comments were an attempt to distract from the debate about raising the rate of Newstart and the unchanging jobless rate.

“It almost makes you feel nostalgic for the days when Tony Abbott was saying the Liberal party was going to be the party of freedom of speech,” he said.

“Fair dinkum, this is ridiculous. It’s like Dutton has been having a conversation in a bar and you hear something stupid going on on the other side of the pub and he says to his mates, ‘hold my beer, I’m going to go over there and say something even more outrageous’.”

Last week the social services minister, Anne Ruston, suggested raising Newstart would only benefit “pubs and drug dealers”.