Peter Dutton has suggested his claim he apologised for remarks about “Lebanese-Muslim” migration being a “mistake” was based on a conversation with just one “senior person” in the community.
The opposition leader has come under renewed scrutiny for his 2016 comments due to reports in the Sydney Morning Herald noting that, despite having claimed in 2023 to have apologised, community leaders cannot recall him having done so.
In November 2016 Dutton, then the immigration minister, told Sky News’s Andrew Bolt that “the reality is that Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we’re seeing that today”.
Dutton then doubled down in question time, claiming Fraser should not have let people of “Lebanese-Muslim” background into Australia by citing as evidence a small cohort of individuals who have been charged with terrorism offences.
In 2023, when asked by Annabel Crabb on the ABC’s Kitchen Cabinet if it was a racist remark, Dutton replied: “You know they’re comments that I shouldn’t have made. I’ve apologised for that.”
Five leaders of Australia’s Lebanese Muslim community interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald reportedly said they have no recollection of Dutton making that apology.
Asked about the apology on Thursday, Dutton told reporters in Brisbane: “Look, there are a couple of leftwing journalists who are obsessed on this issue, it’s not something I’ve got a further comment on.”
“I had a conversation, and I’ve had that discussion. I’m not going to betray that conversation with a senior person who was in the community at the time, the Sydney Morning Herald can obsess about that all they like.”
Dutton declined to answer a follow-up question, saying only “I’ve made my comment”.
In August, amid fierce debate about Dutton’s call for a pause on Palestinians coming to Australia to flee the Gaza conflict, Anthony Albanese told parliament that Dutton “always looked to divide”.
“He said that Lebanese migration was a mistake under the Fraser government, and then he said he apologised for it.
“It’s just that he apologised to Annabel Crabb, not to anyone in the Lebanese community. He hasn’t yet apologised to Africans in Melbourne, for when he said that people couldn’t get out.”
The leader of the house, Tony Burke, said Dutton “wanted to go after Palestinians”. “But before that, it was Africans, it was Lebanese, it was Muslims,” he told the House of Representatives.
“Granted, he hasn’t tried to declare war on every migrant community. He did stand up for white South African farmers. We remember that.”
Burke’s comments referred to past controversies when Dutton claimed in 2018 that Victorians were “scared to go out to restaurants” because of “African gang violence” and the 2016 remarks about Australian Muslims of Lebanese background.
In 2018 Dutton suggested white farmers were being persecuted and should receive fast-tracked humanitarian visas from a “civilised country”.
Guardian Australia contacted Dutton for comment.