Labor accuses Scott Morrison of hypocrisy for ‘preaching Gospel’ while refusing to let Tamil family stay

Joel Fitzgibbon accuses Scott Morrison of hypocrisy as Kristina Keneally calls for “Christian leadership” over Tamil family.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and wife Jenny sing during an Easter Sunday service at his Horizon Church at Sutherland in Sydney.

Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon has accused Scott Morrison of hypocrisy for “preaching the Gospel” while staring down pleas to not deport a Tamil family back to Sri Lanka.

Priya and Nadesalingam, who arrived by boat separately as asylum-seekers in 2012 and 2013, were last night in a small, airconditioned cabin next to the Christmas Island public pool and sports oval with their Australian-born children Kopika, 4, and Tharunicaa, 2.

In a direct hit on the Prime Minister’s Christian faith, Mr Fitzgibbon said the government’s approach towards the family now being held on Christmas Island was “not particularly Christian”.

MORE: Dutton — why family can never remain

“We have a Prime Minister that often likes to preach the Gospel and in any common sense approach we should allow this family to stay here in Australia,” he told Sky News.

Priya and Nadesalingam and their two Australian-born children.

“It’s not a particularly Christian approach to this issue, the way this family was dragged away.

“It is hypocritical. I’m happy to use that word. This is a government that runs on fear.”

Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally — a practising Catholic — also evoked Mr Morrison’s faith at a pro-refugee rally on Sunday and called on him to show “Christian leadership.”

“I say this explicitly as a Christian Australian, my message is to our Christian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — open your heart,” she said in Sydney.

“Understand what the gospel calls us as Christians to do. It is the parable of the good Samaritan. Where we welcome in our land the stranger, where we treat them with compassion and kindness.

“This is an opportunity — and I do not disparage our Prime Minister for talking openly about his faith; it’s part of who he is — but this is an opportunity for him to show Christian leadership. This is an opportunity for him to reflect upon what the gospel calls us as Christians to do.”

Labor and Bill Shorten in particular were criticised during the election campaign for targeting the Prime Minister’s religious beliefs during the election campaign.

Mr Shorten at the time criticised Mr Morrison for not immediately saying gays would not go to hell in the light of the sacking of rugby star Israel Folau for similar comments.

Despite targeting Mr Morrison’s faith, Mr Fitzgibbon, the Labor agriculture spokesman, has told The Australian that the government’s religious discrimination draft is one track to be a “sensible and balanced outcome” and said the Opposition needs to reconnect with religious communities.

Joel Fitzgibbon.

Writing in Brisbane’s Courier Mail, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the Tamil family had to go back to Sri Lanka and had been denied refugee status by various courts in Australia.

The family’s case has been taken up by the community of Biloea, the regional Queensland town they have settled in, the Labor Party, the Greens, Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and Sydney radio star Alan Jones.