Australia’s super racist Immigration Minister, mouldy cabbage Peter Dutton, has a long documented history of gross racism. There’s the time he laughed about people in the Pacific losing their homes due to rising sea levels, literally everything he’s ever said about refugees ever, and, this week, he was pretty offensive to Lebanese Australians. Please read on for details and action points.

Quote from the SMH:

Out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorism offences, 22 of these people have been from second or third generation Lebanese Muslim background,” he baldly stated. “Where I see extremism I will call it out.

Fuuuuck. Dude.

The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we’re seeing that today,” he incorrectly declared. “We need to be honest in having that discussion. There was a mistake made.”

Haha, nice burn from the SMH, but DUDE. MATE. Also sorry not sorry that you wanna walk back what Malcom Fraser did just because the Liberal Party has strayed from its roots haha. (Even John Hewson, former leader of the Liberal Party, was like, wtf mate at Dutton.)

[Liz: Remember the good old days when Harold Holt (may the sea return him) was immigration minister, and kept getting in trouble for issuing too many visas to Asians? And then he became PM and ended the White Australia Policy? HOLT WAS A FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE LIBERAL PARTY, JUST SAYIN’.]

No Australian federal minster should make these racist statements, but the MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION should DEFINITELY not make these racist statements. The Monthly has a good piece on Dutton’s inadequacies and the danger of ministers talking off the top of their head (via suggestions from Andrew Bolt, no less).

Also, there’s a disingenousness in this:

Like, unless you’re Indigenous Australian, you’re a migrant. And some Indigenous Australians are, at the same time, the children of migrants. To genuinely believe a statement like “the children and grandchildren of migrants” is to shore up this ridiculous concept that white Australians are owed Australia. People like Peter Dutton would find a way to use this argument to talk about Chinese-Australians whose great-great-great etc grandparents came to Australia during various goldrushes in the 1800s. Those Australians would still, in the eyes of Peter Dutton, be considered the children of migrants.

[Liz: my mother is the granddaughter of a migrant, but her grandmother came from Aberdeen, so that’s probably different, somehow.]

So please don’t ever think this isn’t about anything other than racism, and the idea of whiteness. Of course, you’re here reading at No Award, so presumably you already know that.

From Ruby Hamad’s great article, please read it: Australian society demanded my shame, now I am demanding Peter Dutton be sacked

They should because no one should be demonised and dehumanised in this way. If citizenship means anything at all, it should mean that third generation Australians are not referred to as migrant grandchildren. Talk about spelling it out loud and clear: you are not one of us, you never were, and you never will be.

The Lebanese Muslim Association of Australia has released a video statement, which you can watch at FB.

Here are some things you could do:

Sign this petition: Censure Peter Dutton and his comments on Lebanese Australians. Look, real talk, No Award does not endorse JUST signing a petition. It’s not as effective as any of the other things we’re about to suggest. But it is a thing you can easily do, and it’s symbolic of how Australians think Peter Dutton is an awful human being made from garbage and mouldy cabbage.

Having said that, here is a different petition: It’s specifically to Richard Di Natale, Bill Shorten, and Malcolm Turnbull: No Room for Racism or Vilification in Parliament. It’s been pulled together by a group Steph is associated with (Asian-Australian activists, surrrprise)

Write to your local Senators and/or MP and tell them you oppose Peter Dutton’s remarks/demand an apology/request he be censured. Obviously he’s a pyramid of rotting seaweed on the dog off leash beach at the end of a long hot summer and so his apology means nothing, but write to them and request SOMETHING. If you’re struggling to think of what to write, be inspired by the words in the petition above, make a statement about how Australia isn’t about racism and that you implore your MP/Senator to request the PM GROW A SPINE I mean censure/denounce Dutton.

If you’re unlucky enough to be resident in Dutton’s electorate, now might be a good time to start campaigning against him for 2019! And you, too, can call his office and tell his staffers (be nice, they’re probably woefully underpaid) that you oppose his remarks.