This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Labor says Australia’s security agencies will be furious with the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, for arguing the former prime minister Malcolm Fraser should not have let people of “Lebanese-Muslim” background into Australia because some of their descendants would be charged with criminal offences.



The Labor frontbencher Tony Burke told the ABC the group who would be “angriest” with the Dutton outburst during question time on Monday would be Australia’s security agencies, who had worked diligently and cooperatively with the local Muslim community on issues such as counter-terrorism.

“I think they would be devastated and shocked that a minister would do that,” Burke told the ABC on Tuesday, arguing Dutton’s intervention was tantamount to “going to war” on the local community.

Australia is paying for Malcolm Fraser's immigration mistakes, says Peter Dutton Read more

Security agencies have on various occasions warned the Coalition to temper public rhetoric in the interests of fostering community cooperation.

Tony Abbott cited security concerns as one reason for his decision to dump the government’s first politically disastrous attempt to water down protections in the Racial Discrimination Act in 2015.

When Malcolm Turnbull took the Liberal party leadership from Abbott he immediately toned down the government’s national security rhetoric on the basis that inflammatory language was counter productive to the national security task.

The immigration minister told parliament on Monday that Fraser should not have let Lebanese Muslims into Australia in the 1970s because a small cohort of people had been charged with terrorism-related offences.

“The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second and third-generation Lebanese-Muslim background,” Dutton told parliament.

Dutton said he did not want entire communities “to be defined by those people who are doing the wrong thing and have been charged with terrorist offences or have been involved in crime otherwise”.

When Peter Dutton makes it about 'us' and 'them', 'we' are in trouble Read more

But he said he did not intend “to shy away from the facts”.

Burke said Dutton’s argument about Lebanese Muslims was absurd. He said it implied some migrants should not be allowed entry to Australia because their grandchildren might commit crimes in the future.

“His argument is Malcolm Fraser should not have allowed certain individuals into Australia based on their race and religion because of the grandchildren they would have?” Burke said Tuesday. “This is a bizarre, weird argument of racial profiling.”

Burke said he was sure “the old Malcolm Turnbull” would disapprove of this intervention.

“And now that Malcolm Turnbull is back in the country, it will be interesting to see whether or not he is of the same view as Peter Dutton – that we’ve got to blame Malcolm Fraser for decisions based on grandchildren and declare a local war on a community that has been so important in the local cooperation with our authorities.”

Turnbull returns to parliament on Tuesday from Peru, where he attended the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.