By political reporter Stephanie Anderson
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has suggested that the Fraser government made a mistake by resettling Lebanese refugees.
Mr Dutton last week stated that former prime minister Malcolm Fraser “did make mistakes in bringing some people in” as part of his immigration policies in the 1970s.
When pressed on those comments during Question Time today, Mr Dutton singled out people of Lebanese-Muslim background.
“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,” he said.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) states that arrivals of people born in Lebanon peaked at 4,906 in 1977, with a smaller peak of 2,600 in 1987.
It further stated that since 1992 arrivals have been relatively stable, fluctuating between 883 and 1,368 persons annually.
As of 2006, the number of Australians of Lebanese background totalled 181,738 — including 16,201 people whose parents were born in Australia.
According to figures from the ABS, more than 10.6 million Australians had at least one grandparent born overseas as of 2011.
Labor MP calls comments ‘extraordinary’
Mr Dutton’s comments were the result of a fiery exchange with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, who repeatedly pressed him on which group he had been referring to.
In a statement, Mr Shorten called on Mr Dutton to apologise for the “disgraceful comments he made about migrants in Australia”.
“Enough is enough,” Mr Shorten said.
“Our hardworking migrant communities shouldn’t have to tolerate this kind of ignorant stupidity and he needs to immediately apologise.
“It’s time for Malcolm Turnbull to show some leadership and pull his Immigration Minister into line.”
Labor MP Tim Watts has criticised the comments on social media, tweeting that the people Mr Dutton was referencing were Australians.
Mr Watts later posted on Facebook that Mr Dutton’s comments were “extraordinary”.
“The Minister for Immigration seems to think that criminal behaviour by ‘second and third generation migrants’ (AKA ‘Australians’, AKA the grandchildren of migrants) is attributable to immigration policy,” he said.
In February, the ABC reported on a Cabinet document which singled out the Lebanese community as the “most prominent ethnic group amongst Australian Sunni extremists”.
The document points to “lessons learned” after a wave of migration to Australia as a result of the Lebanese civil war between 1975 and 1990.
“Australia’s historical experience with the Sunni Lebanese community illustrates potential community safety and national security risks associated with unsuccessful integration,” it said.
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
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Top Comments
I feel that dutton, being a white man and throwing these statistics around he should be able to own them. Immigration didnt work the way it should, look at the indigenous community, theyre still reeling. Also what exactly is he suggesting when saying 2nd and 3rd generation lebanese are committing these crimes. What does he mean by that? I feel i already know what he means but hope it's not the case.
These younger generation did not become extremists in a bubble- systemic racism is an obvious reason for disenchantment. Even if the Fraser government did make some mistakes bleating about in public is just going to make it worse. Nothing like being told your presence in a country was a mistake to inflame racism and further drive th divide and push people towards ISIS.
if th Lebanese community is the biggest Muslim population in Australia it would make sense they'd have a higher rate of extremists. What ar the actual statistics in context and how do the young compare to other Australian groups such as indigenous, long term unemployed Australian populations etc?
a very sensible comment. Thank you for sharing. It makes me upset that we have people in positions of authority basically doing 'hate speech' against muslims, and then wondering why a few muslims get 'radicalised' and hate them back! No more hate. We are all people, we are all equal.
The systemic racism didn't seem to deter Christian or Druze Lebanese refugees from becoming successful, so why was it different for a large number of Lebanese Muslims?
Large number? 22 from 181,738 is 0.01%. Peter Dutton is publicly decrying a forty year old refugee policy and using it as an excuse to treat today's refugees deplorably, because 0.01% of the population group were found to commit extremist acts.
The biggest shame of it is our citizens continue to allow politicians to win with politics of fear, rather than challenge their mistruths and hold them to account for perpetuating the ill treatment of refugees.
I had a look at the statistics http://tapri.org.au/wp-cont...
Is an interesting read and points out the issues in Lebanese communities and some potential reasons for it.
There are lessons to be learnt- looking and how we settle people, what employment we can provide and why the 1977 immigrant suffered more disadvantage.
Asking why like this paper does is much more fruitful and nauced then calling Lebanese immigration a mistake. A lack of low skilled work, settling in one area with little opportunity and a victim mentality all play a roll and really do need consideration in immigration policy. How we overcome this issues is worthy of discussion.