IMMIGRATION Minister Peter Dutton has demanded the ABC and Fairfax apologise “in the next 24 hours” for suggesting he provided false information about the Manus Island incident.

Mr Dutton is sticking to his department’s version of events surrounding a five-year-old boy entering the Manus Island asylum seeker centre, despite differing information from local police.

Mr Dutton said he has information that isn’t public and he still believes the incident sparked a shooting at the Papua New Guinea immigration detention centre on Good Friday.

.@PeterDutton_MP says the ABC has 'lost the plot and they should apologise'... I stand by my comments. MORE https://t.co/CshYY451lA pic.twitter.com/t5wkFqJCBS — Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) April 24, 2017

The minister last week said PNG defence personnel may have opened fire because three asylum seekers were spotted leading a young boy towards the immigration centre.

Mr Dutton told Sky News last night he had reconfirmed his original story with sources on the ground at Manus Island, adding he would not budge on those version of events.

“What I said is factual, I stand by it 100 per cent, and I’m not going to be cowered into a different position when I know what I’ve said to be the truth,” he said.

“And I’ll stand by those comments and I expect the ABC and Fairfax and others to be making an apology in the next 24 hours given the revelations that have been released tonight in relation to their discredited witness.”

Dutton is contradicting PNG police and PNG defence force. He is a liar. Their statements do not mention 5-year-old boy. #Manus pic.twitter.com/kVEXSu3V22 — Shane Bazzi (@shanebazzi) April 20, 2017

Some reports about the incident used evidence from Former Manus Island MP Ronny Knight, who said the violence was unrelated to the fact that a child had been taken into the centre. It later emerged a court had recently upheld a decision from two years ago dismissing him from office over charges of misappropriating funds.

“When you have the ABC and others who are relying on reports and the accounts of people convicted of fraud and who have been excluded from parliament, taken their word over the word of the Australian government, frankly I think the ABC has lost the plot and I think they should be out apologising,” Mr Dutton said.

“The problem is, in relation to a lot of the journalists, they’ve morphed into advocates and lost control of any dispassionate view of this circumstance.

“If somebody from the ABC or from Fairfax or The Guardian or some of these fringe dwellers out on the internet have a different view a more substantive view or more informed view let them put it on the table.

“But I have relayed the facts as they have been provided to me by my department, and those people with knowledge of what happened on the ground and I’m not changing my position, my version, one bit.”

On Sunday, he said his briefing on the matter had been “particularly succinct and clear”.

“I have senior people on the island. We also have a significant contact with the governor and people of Manus,” Mr Dutton told ABC TV .

“I think that there are facts that I have that you don’t so why don’t we let the police investigation run its course.”

However, Manus province police commander David Yapu has told media the boy in question was 10 and he was taken to a tent where asylum seekers were packing food, given some fruit and sent away again — all about a week before the shooting.

This version is reportedly backed up by CCTV footage, which Mr Dutton said may be released after a police investigation.

Mr Yapu blamed the shooting and brawl — which injured at least one asylum seeker — on “drunken” soldiers, while the PNG Defence Force says it was sparked by an altercation on a nearby football field when asylum seekers refused to leave the ground at their curfew time.

Mr Dutton said he raised the incident with the boy in response to questions about the “elevated mood” on the ground that may have led to the shooting.

That mood was also ramped up by the recent charging of two asylum seekers with sexual assault, the minister said — although they deny the charges and have yet to face court.

“If you’re asking me about why there was an elevation of the angst between those that are living — including on the naval base — on Manus, this was part of it,” Mr Dutton said. “These two incidents fed directly into that. That is indisputable.”

He acknowledged the dispute at the soccer game was also “part of the facts of the whole lead-up to the unfortunate incident.”