Peter Dutton isn't a racist... but he'll do 'til one gets here

Some confusion has arisen over whether Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is racist.

Last week independent MP Zali Steggall described Dutton’s call for a ban on Palestinians entering Australia as “inherently racist“. Sky News reported that Dutton is seeking legal advice on Steggall’s comments.

Arguing for a ban on any victims of Israel’s attack on Gaza fleeing to safety in Australia on the basis that such people are automatically a national security threat looks a lot like an adoption of the Israeli government position that no Palestinians are innocent civilians, and that all Palestinians are simply terrorists-in-the-making who will reflexively engage in antisemitic violence.

Speaking of such violence, Dutton has defended his position on the basis that Hamas is even worse than the Nazis: “The Nazis tried to conceal their crime of murdering 6 million Jews. Hamas felt no guilt when they carried out their terrorist attack on October 7.”

Is Dutton racist? He’s famous for his claim in January 2018 that in Victoria “people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night time [sic] because they’re followed home by these [African] gangs, home invasion and cars are stolen”. In July that year, Dutton said “we don’t have these problems with Sudanese gangs in NSW or Queensland.”

More recently, Victorian Liberals have been trying to repair relations with African-Australian communities.

The rhetoric toward China by both Dutton and Scott Morrison — which included Dutton claiming without evidence China was backing Labor to win the 2022 election — was so alienating it prompted a backlash from Chinese-Australian voters, one that Dutton is now trying to fix by labelling himself, improbably, as “pro-China“. Dutton had attacked China and demanded it “change some of its ways” in relation to the circumstances around the origins of the coronavirus.

In 2016, Dutton blamed Malcolm Fraser for allowing in people of “Lebanese-Muslim background” in the 1970s, suggesting they — like Palestinians — were prone to terrorism. In 2023, Dutton justified the comments but claimed to have apologised for them — an apology that no-one in the Lebanese-Australian community can recall hearing.

Don’t let it be said, however, that Dutton is against providing visas to all refugees. In 2018, he asked the new Home Affairs Department to prepare a special refugee intake for white South African farmers. In remarks that appear at odds with his views toward Palestinian or Lebanese refugees, Dutton said “if people are being persecuted, regardless of whether it’s because of religion or the colour of their skin or whatever, we need to provide assistance where we can.” Dutton said white South African farmers would “abide by our laws, integrate into our society.“

Dutton also boycotted the 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generation, but apologised for that when he became opposition leader (in last year’s Voice campaign, Dutton said he was against racism, claiming the Voice would divide Australia along racial lines, and that it was “racist” to suggest Indigenous people are affected by policies differently to non-Indigenous people).

So, apart from Palestinians, Africans, Lebanese Muslims, China and the Stolen Generations, there is no evidence that Peter Dutton is anything other than entirely blind to race and religion — and an advocate for helping persecuted people. If they’re white. Plainly, Zali Steggall should apologise for such an awful slur.