Immigration minister Peter Dutton has become so despised by sections of society that some are questioning if he has a soul or heart.
This could also apply to any Coalition or Labor immigration minister over the past couple of decades.
Watch videos of refugees protests over the past decade and it will not be long before you hear chants such as “Lock up [insert current immigration minister] throw away the keys, we won’t stop till we free the refugees” or “Blood on your hands [insert name]”.
It is often said that truth is the first casualty of war. It is also one of the first casualties of maintaining a detention system that seeks to demonise people fleeing persecution and cover up human rights abuses.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton’s comments that refugees leading a five-year-old Papua New Guinean boy into the detention centre caused distress to locals and led to them firing into the air near the centre, is one of these lies.
Parliament has resumed sitting and immigration bills are on the agenda.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton is proposing a new bill which would give him executive powers to cancel anyone’s visa under any circumstance or for any reason — such as someone’s country of origin or religion.
It has drawn comparisons to Trump’s Muslim ban.
The other bill is the refugee visa ban which was held over from last year. It is unknown when debate on the bill will resume in the Senate.
The visa ban came under increasing pressure last year after it passed the lower house.
Three activists scaled the roof of immigration minister Peter Dutton’s Brisbane electorate office on November 2 to protest the government’s proposed new immigration law.
Activists Scarlett Squire, Kelly Purnell and Ellen Sargent climbed the roof and unfurled an Australian flag covered in blood.
Under the proposed law, any asylum seeker attempting to enter Australia by boat will be banned from ever entering the country.
