For members of Australia’s Lebanese Muslim community, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s call to stop Palestinians fleeing Gaza from entering the country has brought back painful memories of 2016. Dutton, the then minister for immigration and border protection, singled out Lebanese Muslims in parliament after saying the Fraser government had made mistakes in immigration policy in the 1970s. Peter Dutton during question time this week.
Credit: Alex Ellinghausen “The advice that I have is that, out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 are from second- and third-generation Lebanese Muslim backgrounds,” he said in November 2016. The comments were widely condemned at the time and last year, in an episode of the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet , journalist Annabel Crabb put to Dutton that they were racist. “They’re comments that I shouldn’t have made,” he replied.
“I have apologised for that.” Peter Dutton told Annabel Crabb on an episode of the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet that he had apologised for his Lebanese Muslim comments. But five leaders of Australia’s Lebanese Muslim community now say they have no recollection of Dutton ever making that apology.
The opposition leader’s office did not respond to multiple enquiries from this masthead about when, how and to whom he said sorry. Secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association Gamel Kheir said he was unaware of any apology, public or private, received by his organ.