Bolt: Why those calling Peter Dutton ‘racist’ are politcal scoundrels

The Left shouting “racist” at Peter Dutton shows they don’t have the brains or facts to counter a very obvious point he is making.

Zali Steggall has stooped to the last resort of the typical Australian political scoundrel. The Left-wing federal independent MP last Thursday screamed “racist” at Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

That insult won’t work any more, Zali. Most Australians now know that anyone in our intellectually corrupt political culture who yells “racist” is a fool or guilty.

Stegall’s smear just shows she doesn’t have the brains or facts to counter the obvious point Dutton is making: that it’s dangerous for the Albanese Government to keep bringing in Palestinians refugees from terrorist-run Gaza without proper security checks.

That’s why no other Western country has opened their own doors to refugees from Gaza as wide as the Albanese Government has just opened our own.

Compare. The US has taken in just 16 Palestinians from Gaza during this war, and Britain none. France has let in just 260, but all are French residents or nationals, or French employees.

Peter Dutton has made the point it’s dangerous to bring in Palestinian refugees from Gaza without proper security checks. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

In contrast, this Albanese Government, desperate for Muslim votes, has issued more than 2900 visas to Palestinians from Gaza, and – incredibly – without proper security checks. Is it really smarter than the rest of the world?

That’s why Dutton is abused as a racist for last week saying that until we did adequate screening of Palestinians coming from Gaza, it was best and safest to take none at all.

Racist! Racist! It’s all his haters have got.

Listen to them, scoundrels all.

There’s Greens leader Adam Bandt, tweeting that Dutton has a “long history of vilifying people of colour”.

Federal Labor MP Josh Burns, to his shame, falsely accused Dutton of wanting to bring back “a race-based immigration program”.

Education Minister Jason Clare sneered that Dutton was doing “what he’s done all his life – just attack migrants”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is at least smart enough to know calling Dutton “racist” would backfire, so settled for huffing that “he sows division”.

The Australian National Imams Council of course accused Dutton of “racism at its finest”, and the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network claimed he was “stoking racist stereotypes”.

They were joined by celebrity moralists from the Left. Former soccer international Craig Foster, with opinions as styled as his clothes, blasted Dutton’s “racism”, claiming he was discriminating against Palestinians on “religious or racial grounds”.

The Left-hijacked ABC predictably joined the lynching.

Zali Steggall screamed racist at Peter Dutton. Picture: Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

Laura Tingle, chief political correspondent of the ABC’s 7.30 program, earlier this year declared “we are a racist country”, and now claimed Dutton was saying “no-one from Gaza can come here because the majority of the population of Gaza are terrorist ‘sympathisers’” – adding those scare quotes but leaving out the critical part of Dutton’s argument.

In fact, Dutton is right – Birzeit University’s Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank did last month find 57 per cent of Palestinians interviewed face-to-face in Gaza still backed the slaughter of 1200 Israelis by Hamas last October, plus the rapes, beheadings and kidnappings.

Despite that – and let me type this slowly for Tingle – this government IS NOT DOING PROPER SECURITY CHECKS on refugees from Hamas-run Gaza.

There are no biometric tests, and no interviews on the ground before arrival. We don’t even have a single official in Gaza to ask a single question.

Worse, ASIO boss Mike Burgess said last week his spy agency checks only on some refugees when “criteria” are hit, apparently using a single watchlist of suspect names. Amazingly, he admitted ASIO wasn’t rejecting even refugees who supported Hamas rhetorically, and Albanese refused to say he should.

No one, including Dutton, is saying all these refugees are therefore Hamas supporters. But no one can be confident they’re all not, and just one or two extremists among them could really hurt Australia.

Think of the five Australians already killed in Islamist attacks here by other refugees, and the damage that’s done to Muslims as well.

That’s why Dutton is being smeared instead of answered. It’s a debacle.

But is Dutton really racist? Obviously, he denies it, but there’s also no logic to this vicious allegation.

For a start, what race is Dutton supposed to be insulting?

Palestinians? But he doesn’t want a ban on Palestinians from Israel, or from Jordan, Lebanon, America or anywhere else.

Indeed, if Dutton is racist, why as Immigration Minister did he let in 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq, after they’d been interviewed and checked?

No, this is the Left just shouting “racist” to hide one of the most inexcusable follies so far of an incompetent government that’s again proved it’s worse than Whitlam’s.