Bishop slaps down Dutton over ‘people swap’ comment

After he was slapped down for his comments by Julie Bishop today, Peter Dutton turns on Labor for playing ‘word games’.

Julie Bishop meets new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Picture: Getty Images

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton claims Labor is playing “word games” after he suggested refugee agreements between Australia and the US was a people-swap deal, labelling the confusion over his remarks a “storm in a teacup”.

It comes after Foreign Minister Julie Bishop slapped down Mr Dutton for saying an agreement for Australia to take refugees from Costa Rica in Central America was dependent on Washington resettling those held on Manus Island and Nauru.

Ms Bishop said she had not echoed her cabinet colleague’s statement in meetings with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Vice-President Mike Pence during her visit to Washington.

“That’s not my understanding of our agreement with the United States and I believe that Minister Dutton clarified the comments overnight and he’s made it quite clear that we have a humanitarian and refugee program, it’s quite separate from the agreement we’ve reached with the United States,” Ms Bishop told Sky News.

“We accept over 13,000 people claiming humanitarian or refugee status, that’s increasing to about 18,750. As part of a completely separate arrangement we have requested the United States to assist resettling people who paid people smugglers to seek to come to Australia and are currently detained on Nauru.”

Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

But Mr Dutton told 2GB radio Labor, which has criticised the minister for his “stuff up”, was desperately trying to “scuttle” the deal that will see up to 1250 refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres resettled in the US.

“This is a bit of a storm in a teacup but I said on Andrew Bolt’s program the other day that it wasn’t a people swap. I think Labor are desperate to try and scuttle this deal. In the end people can use whatever language they want, which is the point that I was making. I’m not going to get bogged down in nuance and discussion, I’m a pretty frank speaker,” Mr Dutton said.

“I’ve been clear that it’s not a people swap, they’re two separate arrangements.

“People can concentrate on where a full stop or a comma was and in my mind I just don’t care how people want to characterise it, that’s an issue for them.”

Special Minister of State Scott Ryan also attempted to mop up the political fallout, carefully selecting which of Mr Dutton’s comments he referred to.

“At all times the government has made clear there’s no link between the two agreements. In the interview that Peter had the other night he even said it wasn’t a people swap and he did make that clear again yesterday morning,” Senator Ryan told Sky News.

Mr Dutton has been forced to back away from his apparent confirmation that Australia and the US had entered into a “beneficial” quid pro quo type of arrangement following months of government refusals that the agreements were reliant on each other.

Mr Dutton said he would not call it a people-swap deal but conceded he had “no problem with that characterisation”.

“We wouldn’t take anyone until we had assurances that people were going to go off Nauru and Manus,” Mr Dutton told Sky News on Tuesday night.

Revelations that Australia signed a written agreement with the US in September committing both nat­ions to co-operate on refugee resettlement fuelled fresh ­accusations of a secret “people-swap” deal with Washington.

Speaking on breakfast radio in Melbourne yesterday, Mr Dutton clarified his comments by saying the two refugee deals were “separate” ­arrangements.

Government sources also informed The Australian the two deals could not be properly characterised as a “people-swap” because Australia would be ­accepting only a small number of refugees from Costa Rica.

Under a deal clinched with the Obama administration and reluctantly recommitted to under Donald Trump, the US has agreed to accept up to 1250 refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres.

Ms Bishop said the matter was not raised during her meetings in the US and the refugee intakes from Costa Rica, Manus Island and Nauru were being dealt with at “officials” level.

Labor’s immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann called on the government to release relevant documentation to understand the nature of the refugee deals.

“I don’t think there’s much clarification at all,” Mr Neumann told Sky News.

“Was Peter Dutton going solo? Was he retrospectively putting demands on the Americans and was he actually retrospectively changing the terms and the conditions of the agreement? We don’t know.”