Refugee intake will minimise single Sunni men, favour Christians

Peter Dutton says the government will not ‘tolerate any view … designed to kill off the Australian way of life’.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says ‘we have a problem with second or third-generation new Australians (who) are radicalising online’.

Australia will minimise its intake of single Sunni men as it vets the 12,000 Syrian refugees the government has pledged to take from Syria, prioritising instead Christian family groups who can never return home.

As Malcolm Turnbull fended off suggestions he had conflated the European refugee crisis with the terror attacks in Brussels and Paris, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Australia had “a problem’’ with second and third-generation migrants who become extremists.

Speaking after Belgium’s ambassador to Australia, Jean-Luc Bodson, chided the government for connecting the Brussels terror attack with ­Europe’s migrant policies, Mr Dutton said some Euro­pean countries had adopted a “more passive’’ approach to terrorism and the challenges it posed to Western values.

“There’s been a different ­approach in some European ­nations to terrorists, a more passive approach,’’ Mr Dutton said. “That’s not the case in Australia. We’re not going to tolerate any view at all which is designed to kill off the Australian way of life or cause mass harm.’’

Mr Dutton also drew a connection between Australia’s migration program and homegrown extremists, many of whom have been second-generation Lebanese or Afghan migrants.

“We have a problem in this country with second or third-­generation new Australians and people that are radicalising online, people who believe that they owe some ­allegiance to another part of the world.’’

On Thursday, a day after the Prime Minister delivered a speech critiquing Europe’s migration policies, Mr Bodson said the ­remarks were “dangerous’’.

‘’It’s precisely what (Islamic State) wants,’’ the Belgian envoy said.

“That we would make a confusion between terrorism and ­migrants and between terrorism and Islam.’’

The comments came after Mr Turnbull accused Islamic State of exploiting the European refugee crisis, which has been caused by the Syrian civil war, to smuggle its operatives in among the millions of refugees streaming into southern Europe.

On Thursday, Mr Turnbull told the ABC his words were “carefully checked’’ by his security advisers.

“I don’t think anyone would ­seriously doubt what I said,’’ Mr Turnbull said.

Mr Dutton said so far fewer than 100 of the 12,000 refugees Australia had pledged to take from war-ravaged Syria or northern Iraq had arrived in the country.

The government has said it would prioritise persecuted min­orities in choosing the 12,000, widely understood to be code for non-­Islamic migrants.

Christian groups, such as Yaz­idis, who have been massacred and enslaved by Islamic State in northern Iraq, will be given preference, partly because — unlike Sunni groups — they will never be able to return to their homes.

Authorities will largely pass over refugees from high-risk groups, such as single Sunni men.

The government has pledged to vet the 12,000 new migrants, subjecting them to biometric checks as well as checking their bona fides with Australia’s intelligence partners.