New Immigration Minister blasted for extremist remark

Labor has hit out at new Immigration Minister Alex Hawke for saying that extremism was not on the rise in Australia.

New Immigration Minister Alex Hawke says extremism is not increasing in Australia and he has accused the Labor party of overegging the issue.

But the remark has been blasted by opposition, which says he is contradicting Australia’s top intelligence officials.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation revealed in September that up to 40 per cent of its counter-terrorism case load centred on right-wing extremism, up from 15 per cent before 2016.

Speaking on Sky News, Mr Hawke said: “What we have here is increased social cohesion, not increasing extremism.”

He said the government rejected claims from Labor home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally that the issue was on the rise, saying extremists were “fringe groups” that were being tackled by security agencies.

“Extremism is a concern to the government and that’s why we funded our national security agencies to do their job on all parts of the spectrum,” he said.

Labor senator Kristina Keneally says right-wing extremism was not a new problem in Australia. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Jeremy Piper

Mr Hawke pointed to the new Scanlon social cohesion report, which he said showed the highest level of trust in governments and support for immigration and multiculturalism ever recorded in the survey’s history.

“I really do think Senator Keneally ought to just consider the results of Scanlon carefully today that people are very cohesive here, that they reject extremism, that they embrace multiculturalism and immigration,” he said.

But Senator Keneally defended her concerns about right-wing extremists, taking to Twitter to say Labor took the advice of national security agencies “seriously”.

“It was only a matter of time before newly minted multiculturalism minister showed his true colours by denying the rise of right-wing extremism,” she wrote on Twitter.

The parliament’s intelligence committee is accepting submissions to an inquiry about extremist movements and radicalism in Australia.

The committee is due to report back in April.