Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has refused to address allegations he has fueled hate toward the Australian Islamic community following a far-right terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand.
Speaking to the ABC, the minister did not address comments he has made about Australian Muslims - including 2016 remarks that it was a mistake to resettle many Lebanese refugees in Australia.
Instead, Mr Dutton accused Greens members Mehreen Faruqi and Richard Di Natale of politicising the terrorist attack - likening them to the widely condemned far-right senator Fraser Anning.
"People on the 'extreme left' are just as bad as Fraser Anning," he told ABC's Radio National.
The desire to extract some sort of political advantage or attention seeking out of this circumstance is appalling.
He said he regrets the spotlight given to people like Fraser Anning, Mehreen Faruqi and Greens leader Richard Di Natale.
"Giving these people attention they don't deserve is something we need to be conscious of."
The attack has sparked a national conversation about the tolerance of far-right views by politicians and main-stream media.
Greens' Senator Mehreen Faruqi said the government has long stoked hatred against the Muslim community in Australia.
“They have created an atmosphere of hate and Islamophobia. That atmosphere does have consequences for Muslims who live here,” she told The Feed.
"Comparing me to Senator Anning actually harms our community. It is disgraceful and vile.
"But I'm not surprised given [Peter Dutton's] track record."
Senator Faruqi’s comments come after the resurfacing of a 2011 newspaper report that Scott Morrison sought to capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment as a political strategy.
Peter Dutton, Health Minister Greg Hunt and others in the party have since denied the claims in an interview with The New Daily.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison was quick to call out the attack as “far-right extremism” and has been photographed at Sydney mosques at the weekend.
In the wake of last year’s Bourke Street terrorist attack, which killed two people, the Prime Minister called upon Imams and the Muslim community to do more to counter threats of attack.
"He was a terrorist. He was a radical extremist terrorist who took a knife to another Australian because he had been radicalised in this country,” he told Network Ten at the time.
However, Prime Minister Morrison has not asked any white-leaders to account for the radicalisation the alleged mosque gunman - a caucasian Australian man behind the Christchurch mosque shootings.
Expert says government confused on how to deal with far-right figures
Immigration Minister David Coleman banned far-right figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos from entering the country at the weekend - labelling his comments on the Christchurch attack as an “appalling and foment of hatred and division”.
The decision came a week after Minister Coleman approved Yiannopoulos’ visa - against the advice of the Home Affairs department.
Anti-terrorism expert at the University of New South Wales Greg Austin said the backflip highlights the government’s confusion about how to deal with far-right discourse.
“First, they were saying he’s coming in - then saying he is not coming in because of what he said about the Christchurch shooting. But in fact, his views before the Christchurch shooting were exactly the same as after the Christchurch shooting,” he said.
“I think that really does demonstrate the confusion of how we treat this sort of dialogue and discourse in Australia.”
Professor Austin said it is sad that it had taken a mass-shooting in New Zealand for the government to condemn far-right commentators.
“I think that Australians now see - like their New Zealand counterparts - we have to be more clear about standing up to people who attack Muslims and who vilify them.”
He says intelligence organisations in Australia have long taken far-right extremism seriously but politicians and the wider public have not.
