Federal election 2016: Labor ‘playing to Greens’ on refugees

The PM has condemned Labor’s proposal to double Australia’s refugee intake as a ‘gesture’ to the Greens.

Malcolm Turnbull has condemned Labor’s proposal to ­double Australia’s refugee intake as a “gesture” to the Greens, as he ramps up his attack on the cost ­involved.

Arguing that Australia’s successful humanitarian program was built on a “pillar of compassion”, the Prime Minister yesterday ­defended Immigration Minister Peter Dutton for his suggestion that “illiterate and innumerate” refugees would take Australian jobs. “The point that Peter Dutton makes is a very important one. So many of those who come lack English skills, they lack often literacy in their own language, they have come from war-ravaged, war-torn areas, they deserve our compassion and our support and, believe me, we give that to them,” Mr Turnbull said, describing Mr Dutton as an “outstanding” minister.

“That is not a basis for criticising them. What it is, as Peter has identified, is a basis for us taking our responsibilities seriously and ensuring that we take into Australia the number of refugees that we can effectively settle.”

His strident defence of his conservative minister came after Bill Shorten labelled the remarks an “insult to refugees and indeed our great migrant history”.

“Mr Dutton’s comments are comments Pauline Hanson would have been proud to make,” the ­Opposition Leader said. “The best that the Liberal Party can do, it ­appears, is put out a string of lies and ­pathetic scare campaigns.”

Mr Turnbull used the comments to target Mr Shorten over border protection, and said that his proposed doubling of Australia’s 13,750 humanitarian intake would cost “billions” of dollars, with the Greens proposal to quadruple it costing even more.

Mr Dutton’s office later provided figures suggesting the Greens policy would cost an extra $7 billion over four years and Labor’s an additional $2.3bn.

The government’s decision last year to extend the humanitarian program to an additional 12,000 refugees fleeing conflict in Syria cost $827.4 million over four years.

“Labor’s approach to immigration is one of gesture politics,” Mr Turnbull said. “They have made no estimation of what the additional cost would be; it will run into billions of dollars. Nor have they considered whether we have the capacity in our settlement ­services to ensure those ­additional refugees are settled here.”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also defended Mr Dutton, saying it was “self-evident” that the cost of resettling humanitarian refugees was high. Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday, Mr Dutton said lifting the number of refugees further would see them competing for jobs, often in industries linked to trade unions that supported Labor.

“These people would be taking Australian jobs. There’s no question about that,” Mr Dutton said, adding that many refugees “won’t be numerate or literate in their own language, let alone English”.

“And for many of them that would be unemployed, they would languish in unemployment queues and on Medicare and the rest of it, so there would be a huge cost, and there’s no sense in sugar-coating that. That’s the scenario.”