Karl Stefanovic has called Immigration Minister Peter Dutton‘s recent comments about refugees ‘un- Australian’ in an editorial on The Today Show this morning.
Speaking to Sky News on Tuesday, Dutton said of refugees seeking asylum here that they won’t be numerate or literate in their own language, let alone English.
Interestingly enough though, despite their seeming lack of education and skills, Dutton still felt they would be a threat to Australian jobs. “These people would be taking Australian jobs, there’s no question about that,” he said, apparently fearful for his own.
“For many of them that would be unemployed,” he added, ‘unemployed’ of course having become one of the leading jobs among Australian youth since the coalition took power.
Not one to get bogged down in details he went on to say, “they would languish in unemployment queues and on Medicare and the rest of it, so there would be huge cost and there’s no sense in sugar-coating that, that’s the scenario.”
Stefanovic however, along with many Australians took offense at Dutton’s sweeping generalisations and “cherry picked” statistics.
“In defending his comments yesterday, Dutton appears to have cherry-picked statistics which don’t reflect the views of his own department,” Stefanovic pointed out.
“Listen to report from 2011: ‘The larger picture of humanitarian entrants is one of considerable achievement and contribution. Humanitarian entrants help meet labour shortages. They display strong entrepreneurial qualities compared with other migrant groups, with a higher than average proportion engaging in small and medium business enterprise.’
“It’s a cliche, but what Peter Dutton said yesterday was un-Australian. Given his time again, he may have chosen a different way to articulate it, but what’s done is done, and I think he needs to apologise.
“Not only for those arriving now, but those who have come and now gone, giving their blood, sweat and tears, and handed down their values to the next generations, who are many of our leaders today.”
Still despite this, Dutton refuses to apologise for his comments.
“I don’t think you can argue against the facts and those on the left that have spoken against what I said, I’m not going to stand back from what I said,” he told on Ray Hadley’s 2GB program today.
Not one to sit on the sidelines when it comes to jumping on stop the boats bandwagon, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has also backed Dutton’s comments, calling him “an outstanding immigration minister” on Wednesday.
“As Peter was saying earlier today, many of them come to Australia from shattered areas of the world,” he said before describing humanitarian refugees as having “no English skills at all”.
With Stefanovic’s remarks instantaneously praised on social media and going viral this afternoon however, we can at least take solace that many Australian people don’t share Dutton’s view.
