Opposition leader Peter Dutton is under fire from two Lebanese Muslim Liberal politicians who claim they have never heard his apology for eight-year-old comments that were dredged up again this week.
In 2016 now-Liberal leader Mr Dutton said on Sky News that Australia had made immigration policy mistakes in the 1970s, and when asked to explain in parliament said:
“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.”
When his statements were brought up in an ABC interview last year Mr Dutton said “they’re comments that I shouldn’t have made” and revealed he had apologised for them.
But Sutherland Shire Council councillor Hassan Awada and Liverpool councillor Mazhar Hadid, have now joined a chorus of left-wing critics of Mr Dutton, including ex-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who are challenging the apology.
“Can he tell us when and where he said that? Mate, we never heard that,” Mr Hadid, who moved to Australia from Lebanon in 1986 to join his parents who arrived in the 1970s, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“A leader should unite the community, not isolate any section of the community.”
Mr Awada, who was allowed to migrate to Australia at age 22 despite speaking zero English, said that Mr Dutton’s comments were “ill-informed” and that he could not remember an apology from the leader of his party.
On Thursday when Mr Dutton was asked about the apology again he said it was made to a senior member of the Lebanese Muslim community, and hit back at “left-wing journalists who are obsessed on this issue”.
“It’s not something I’m going to further comment on. I had a conversation. And I had that discussion,” he said.
“I’m not going to betray that conversation with a senior person, who it was in the community at the time. The Sydney Morning Herald can obsess about that all they like.”
At the time of Mr Dutton’s comments Islamic terrorism was a major issue, and there were 34,193 Lebanese-born Muslims living in Australia, and another 230,869 people with Lebanese ancestry, of which an estimated 43% were Muslim.
That means the approximately 99,000 second and third-generation Lebanese Muslims made up 66.6% of Australia’s terrorism charges despite being just 0.42% of the population.
Mr Dutton was also criticised this week for pandering to Chinese immigrants in a video celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival.
Header image: Opposition leader Peter Dutton during a recent trip to Israel, left, and Sutherland councillor Hassan Awada, right (Facebook)
