Peter Dutton hasn’t been far away from the headlines today, with backlash against his desire to welcome more white South African farmers into Australia sparking debate in Canberra and the media.
On Thursday, Dutton said white South Africans were facing “horrific” conditions at home after their government announced it would confiscate land from them without compensation.
“If you see the footage and read the stories, it’s a horrific circumstance that they face, and Australia has a refugee and humanitarian program as well as a number of other visa programs where we have the potential to help some of these people that are being persecuted,” he explained. “I’ve asked my department to look at options and ways in which we can provide some assistance… People need help, and they need help from a civilised country like ours.”
Outspoken activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied made her views on the issue heard in a scathing Twitter attack, in which she called Dutton’s proposal “deeply racist”.
“This is the same man who has refused to extend the same generosity to the Rohingya…suggesting they might be returned to Myanmar, a country accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing against the Muslim minority,” she wrote.
“This kind of behaviour and rhetoric is so deeply racist, to call it ‘thinly veiled’ would be offensive to the term ‘thinly veiled’.”
https://twitter.com/yassmin_a/status/974137157488066560
https://twitter.com/yassmin_a/status/973882027702439937
She also said that white people broke the law and that skin colour wasn’t enough to bring fast-track a visa.
“Reading his comments, you’d think all white people ‘abide by our laws’, ‘integrate’ and aren’t living a ‘life on welfare’ (with all the classism that statement entails),” she said. “Because white people never break the law. Because they never need welfare. Because they’re clearly, perfect.”
The former ABC star didn’t stop there. “Thing is, white people break the law all the time. They rape, steal, terrorise… and so do brown people, black people, green people – etc No one group of people has the monopoly on ‘goodness’, ‘civilization’ or ‘perfection’, despite what Dutton or others might say.”
The 27-year-old later tweeted that Australia should help Mynamar because it is closer than South Africa, before insisting that she wasn’t only advocating for Muslims. “Do NOT make this about my only advocating for Muslims, or being anti-white, because that’s lazy and incorrect,” she vented.
https://twitter.com/yassmin_a/status/974138949189885952
“It’s about challenging double standards – or in Aussie terms, a ‘fair go’ – which we like to talk about a lot, but clearly don’t know how to actually apply, in practice.”