Maybe he’s just been emboldened by the Trump victory, but Peter Dutton is really amping up his rhetoric on refugees and immigrants. No longer content to just go after asylum seekers, Dutts is taking the fight to the real bad people: the immigrants who came into Australia under predecessor Malcolm Fraser.
Speaking on Sky News, Dutton criticised Fraser’s relatively liberal immigration policy as basically the root of all the problems Australia is now facing.
“The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we’re seeing that today,” Dutton said. “We need to be honest in having that discussion. There was a mistake made.”
There’s certainly a lesson for America in the level of abject xenophobia that develops in the halls of power when its not properly addressed. Dutton calls for specific national profiling when it comes to accepting immigrants – and he’s not just talking about scapegoating Muslims. He’s talking about ‘problem’ nationalities generally.
We do review the program each year, and if we feel there are problems with particular cohorts, particular nationalities, particular people who might not be integrating well and not contributing well, then there are many other worthy recipients who seek to come to a country like ours and make an opportunity their own.
He blamed state governments – specifically Victoria‘s Labor government – for being “weak” on law and order. The question was on Sudanese criminal gangs, which presumably Fraser is also to blame for.
Great! I thought it’d be hard to find an Immigration Minister more detestable than Scott Morrison but Dutt-dawg has really pulled through for the team over the past few months.
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Getty Images.
