Culture

Peter Dutton Gave A Deeply Frustrating Interview About Paying People Smugglers, Accepting More Refugees On ‘Insiders’ Yesterday

Here's what we kind of know.

by Hannah Hawkins  9 November 2015

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Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is not normally known for his intelligent insights or animated facial expressions, but people watching his interview on ABC’s Insiders yesterday still seemed particularly unimpressed with his performance.

Insiders host Barrie Cassidy was his usually straight-forward self, questioning Dutton on the case of ‘Abyan’, the pregnant Somali asylum seeker who requested an abortion after allegedly being raped on Nauru; allegations that the government paid people smugglers to turn back the boats; and whether Australia will be increasing our intake of refugees.

Here are some of the things he answered, and more of the things he didn’t.

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Abyan Is In Australia

After an exhaustive few weeks involving online petitions, protest rallies, efforts from the Greens in Parliament and plenty of media attention, it seems ‘Abyan’ (not her real name) is finally getting the help she needs.

Abyan, who claims to have been raped on Nauru, was initially brought to Sydney last month after she requested an abortion. According to her lawyer George Newhouse, she was not allowed to see a councillor to discuss the operation or given sufficient time to make the decision before being flown back to Nauru without treatment. (We published a detailed timeline of events here, if you’d like to know more).

Responding to the public outrage over the case, Dutton announced over a week ago that Abyan would be returning to Australia for medical treatment. Yesterday morning, he confirmed that she has arrived.

“She is [here] and she’s receiving medical attention, and as I’ve said before, we will do what’s in the best interests,” he told Insiders.

“Her doctors [and] specialists that spoke with her recommended that she come to Australia and we’ve accommodated that and she’s receiving medical attention, but I don’t have anything further to say in relation to what I think is a very private matter between her and her doctors.”

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Australia Might Increase Our Refugee Intake

Dutton has just recently returned from the refugee camps in Jordan, where he presented four Syrian families with Australian visas. Jordan is home to almost a million refugees, who were mostly displaced by the Syrian war. Acknowledging that the situation in Syria and the Middle East will continue to worsen, Dutton implied that the number of refugees Australia is currently accepting (12,000) could potentially increase — given that they’re not all terrorists, of course.

“I think if we can demonstrate that we can get the security and health checks right and that we’re bringing the right people [here], I think people will have confidence in the program perhaps at some point extending [the number of refugees], depending on the circumstance in Syria,” he said.

“But I’ve said publicly before, and I said when I was in Jordan, that the Government is open to further assistance given that this situation will deteriorate, but we need to first demonstrate that we can have success in bringing the 12,000 across.”

He also noted that no one country can accommodate the UN’s predicted 60 million refugees, which is a particularly astute observation. I could have inserted his exact statement here, but it is the longest, messiest phrase I’ve seen in my life and oh god can someone please teach him to speak in sentences.

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Maybe The Government Paid People Smugglers, Maybe They Didn’t. But It Was Definitely Legal, Okay?

Unfortunately for Dutton, the welcome hint that we might potentially accept more refugees — however convoluted it came across — was drowned out by his frustratingly dense responses to accusations that the government paid people smugglers to turn back boats.

Cassidy was talking about a recent damning report by Amnesty International, which claims Australian officials gave cash to people smugglers to return a boat of asylum seekers to Indonesia. Amnesty’s evidence includes interviews with people who were on the boat and Indonesian police, as well as photos of the cash Australian Navy and Border Force officials allegedly gave to the people smugglers.

Dutton has previously condemned the report as an ideological attack, but yesterday Cassidy requested a more detailed response. He didn’t get it.

The back and forth between the two went on seemingly forever, but all we learned is that Dutton fervently believes that the Australian Border Force has always “acted within the law” — and that Cassidy is very patient.

Eventually, Dutton ended with “people can draw their own conclusions”.

He’s not wrong about that.

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