Peter Dutton has branded a human rights advocate a “media tart” for sharing an “offensive” photo of the home affairs minister depicted as a Nazi officer.
Australian barrister Julian Burnside sparked outrage after posting the offensive photo on Twitter. It showed Dutton’s face superimposed on a Nazi officer in a uniform. Shockingly, the uniform included the “death’s head” emblem, which was used by the SS unit responsible for concentration camps during World War II.
Burnside, who has recently advocated for the rights of asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru, regularly critics Dutton online – but his latest attack may have crossed a major line.
He wrote on the social media site: “Take this seriously: @PeterDutton_MP is the most powerful MP in Australia, and arguably the least scrupulous. He acts as if the rights of human beings are irrelevant, unless they happen to be in his electorate.”
Now, hitting back at the tweet, Dutton has claimed Burnside only cares about seeing “his name in lights”.
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He told host 2GB radio host Ray Hadley: “He’s concerned with his own human rights… He feigns concern for others, but his only concern is about himself. He loves the media, but he’s a pretty poor figure. If you look at the hypocrisy, he’s basically just a media tart, and I don’t think we need to give him any air time because that’s what he’s after.
“If he wants to retweet these things and he thinks it’s funny, or he’s not happy with me over boats – and he’s been on that case for a long period of time – he was nowhere to be seen of course, when kids were drowning at sea and kids were going into detention, so he’s got convenient amnesia when Labor or the Greens are in, so again, none of that makes a difference to me, we’ve got a job to do.
“We’re going to keep that border secure, and we aren’t going to be bullied or intimidated by people who are just publicity seekers. He loves to see his own name up in lights, and I don’t want to add to it.”
He has been backed by Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich, who described the photo as “profoundly offensive” to The Australian.
“The idea that Peter Dutton and the government’s policies are in any way similar to the brutal and systematic extermination of millions of Jews … is historically inaccurate and is profoundly offensive to Holocaust survivors and to their families,” he told the publication.
Burnside has refused to apologise for the retweet, and hasn’t deleted it from his Twitter profile, however he told the newspaper he was not comparing government refugee policies with Nazi Germany.
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