Tactical Paranoia: Peter Dutton’s Palestinian Problem
The philosophy of the dunce, and the politics of the demagogue, often keep company. And Peter Dutton has both of these unenviable traits in spades. The Australian opposition leader, smelling weakness in his opponent, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has again gravitated to something he is most comfortable worth: terrifying the kaka out of the Australian public.
The method of doing so is always unimaginatively dull and almost always inaccurate. Select your marginal group in society. Elevate it as a threat, filling it with a gaseous, nasty fantasy. Condemn said group for various fictional and misattributed defects. When all is done, demonise its members and tar any alleged supporters or collaborators as foolish at best, unpatriotic at worst.
The group of late to rankle Dutton and his front bench of security hysterics are Palestinians, notably those fleeing the odious war in Gaza and seeking sanctuary in Australia. Since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, only 2,922 visas have been granted to those possessing Palestinian Authority travel documents, with roughly 350 being visitor visas. Much larger total of 7,111 visa applications have been refused by the federal government. So far, a mere 1,300 of them have made it to Australia, placed on temporary visitor visas that do not enable the holders to receive government aid or engage in meaningful employment. The Albanese government is ruminating on whether to create a new category of visa that would lift such impediments.
On such figures, Dutton has little to work with. Undeterred, he has spent the best part of a week playing the role of the tactically paranoid. “If people are coming in from that war zone and we’re uncertain about their identity or allegiances,” he told Sky News on August 14, it was “not prudent” to let them in.
Education Minister Jason Clare, who represents an electorate in Western Sydney with a sizeable Muslim population, mockingly invited Dutton to pay a visit. “There are people from Gaza here now, they live in my electorate, I’ve met them, great people.” They had “had their homes blown up, their schools blown up, their hospitals blown up, who have had their kids blown up.”
The Shadow Home Secretary James Paterson has also drummed up the concern that the government has simply not convinced “us and the Australian people that the security and identity checks that they’re doing are sufficiently thorough and robust to protect the Australian people.” While Australia had an “important role to play” in confronting “a very serious need,” safety and security of the Australian populace came first.
What constitutes a satisfactory measure for Paterson? A blanket refusal to grant visas to any supporters of Hamas would be a start. “We are several days now into this debate, and they still have not clearly said whether they will or whether they won’t accept someone who is a supporter of Hamas into our country.” All applications from Palestinians fleeing Gaza had to be referred to the domestic intelligence service, ASIO and “robust in-person interviews and biometric tests” conducted.
In comments made to The Australian Financial Review, Paterson revealed the true intention of this dash into demagogy’s thicket. “Governments make choices all the time about who they prioritise to bring to Australia. If the Albanese government picks this cohort ahead of others it will be a revealing choice.”
These objections have an air of stifling unreality to them. For one thing, they are scornful of the views of Mike Burgess, the current ASIO director general, who, on August 11, stated that “there are security checks” or “criteria by which people are referred to my service for review and when they are, we deal with that effectively.”
Burgess, showing uncharacteristic nuance, drew a distinction between the provision of financial or material aid to the organisation, something which might tickle the interest of a screening officer, and that of “rhetorical support”. “If it’s just rhetorical support, and they don’t have an ideology or support for a violent extremism ideology, then that’s not a problem.”
The logic of preventing individuals coming to Australia purely because of a supporting link with Hamas shows a dunce’s principle at work. It falsely imputes that the individual is a potential terrorist, eschewing any broader understanding. Immature and unworldly, such a perspective ignores the blood-spattered political realities of the conflict. The insinuation here is that the only acceptable Palestinian is an apolitical one mutely acknowledging the primacy of Israel power, humble in expressing any claims to self-determination.
The Coalition opposition to granting visas to Palestinians voicing support for Hamas is also implausible in another respect. While claiming to be defenders of that most weaselly of terms, “social cohesion”, Dutton and his stormtroopers seek to demolish it. Manufacturing insecurity, much like the mafia’s credo, becomes the pretext for battling it.
Boiled down to its essentials, the views of Dutton and his colleagues, wholly picked from the cabinet of Israel’s security narrative, is that any support for Palestinian autonomy and independence, manifested through any political or military arm, must be suspect. You had to be, as Paterson put it, “a peaceful supporter of Palestinian self-determination” and an opponent of “using violent means”. Be quiet, remain subservient, and wait for the oppressor’s good will.
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Return to home pageIn comparison to a glance at Peter Duckwit-Futton, the sight of a sick camel’s clakka is relieving. Dear Peter, our own oppositional Sheisskerl, remains an object of hateful derision, the bumkicker, depriver of liberties and serial egofixated mirror basher is just so Un-Australian, an embarrassment to us all. In NSW the liberal party circus is folding, sick and tired of being betrayed by Dutton, who is no leader for sensible, intelligent, professional types. Zionism is and always was a murderous and thieving policy of grabbing slabs of a legal entity known as Palestine, under treacherous British control up to May 1948, using ancient lies, legend, fantasy, superstition, righteous self saturation, supremacist belief in a master chosen race, craving a promised land from some fictional spirit that has never been seen or proven.., it is all agony for victims in Gaza, as if the ruthless care. Israel, as it is now and was allowed to manifest itself, has denied justice, honesty, decency, but.., the “others” didn’t care after Adolf’s evils, just to get rid of a centuries old jewish problem by out of sight methods. How callous all round, for Jewish people had endured centuries of misery, yet now inflict misery on Palestinians. Dutton, who might have a forged kindy pass certificate, should shut up as befits a fool and conspirator.
I’m trying to think of any politician in Australia’s history who has been as big an embarrassment as this utter joke of a sub-human. (The smirking Scummo, budgie smuggler boy and rotten Johnny come close but he surpasses all of them.) On a positive note, the longer the conservatives consider the towball headed thing from the swamp to be ‘leader material’ the longer they will remain the opposition. I’m reminiscing about the days when politicians had respect because they actually tried to do the right thing. Anyone else rememebr that?
The greatest tragedy of this fine forum is that those targeted for critical mention; asinine non-entities generally on the RWNJ side of the spectrum whose names needn’t be repeated here never get to read these frank assessments. It’s a shame. For sure, they get criticised in the media, but not robustly enough, and they get called out in parliament, again, not rigorously enough, and it would, I believe, be helpful if they were made to read these sombre reflections of how we, the punters, see them both as human beings in the first instance and secondly as politicians, by definition people of privilege and responsibility who de facto ought to act in the best possible fashion in the interests of their electorates and the wider population of this country.
The rabid zealot and deeply negative naysayer known as the federal leader of the opposition fails on every metric of competency; the compromised member for New England is but a few rungs behind, the leader of the coalition’s minor party is a gormless dud and many of the flock are just time-wasting butt shiners, do-nothings who sit out their tenures with zero contribution while pulling generous salaries.
There ought be a process where they’re required to hear what people really think of them; shock therapy as it were, and it ought be mandated that there is a proficiency bar below which if they sink has real world consequences; loss of salary, suspension from duties, dunce’s caps and so on.
Butthead with a beard lookalike, Jimmy Paterson, is a dickhead. If he knew anything of this country’s history, he would know that during the Second World War, Australia interned German, Italian and Japanese people as “enemy aliens,” without understanding that many of them were innocent. They interned pro- and anti-Nazi Germans together and fights broke out! The attitude towards the Japanese was as paternal as it was to the Aboriginals! The only thing that I agreed with Mark Latham about was that John Howard’s overtures to George W. Bush were “an arse-licking effort,” and Potty Boy Dutton has demonstrated that he is a Zionist arse-licker, which is why he went to Israel recently! Let’s hope that people have learnt from the “Children Overboard” lies of Johnny Howard and can see through Potty Boy’s lies!
He’s just an authoritarian populist RRWNJ thug, fearmonger, oaf, thickhead and racist (no matter how much says otherwise).
Just as Scomo declared his ambition for his mate, Malcolm Turnbull and who could doubt the sincerity of his pledge, I too have great ambition for our own Dear Leader, (opposition that is), with even greater sincerity than that of Scomo, that Cudly Pete Futton has a long and continuing inglorious career, leader of His Majesty’s opposition, (Australian colony), no I really do wish him a long, very long association with the leather of the benches to the left of the speaker. I hope he has a long life and that he dies in/on that job, (apologies to the late Billy Sneddon who also died on the job, different job), my understanding?
Just had a thought, uhm, are there degrees of sincerity or is it an absolute, maybe I should consult Cudly Pete Futton, he would know wouldn’t he?
Dutton would be loving this. In a twisted way, of course.
Matt Synnott, funny you should raise the, ahem, matter of Billy Sneddon’s dramatic departure from this life, in flagrante delicto and all that. He came up in discussion just a few days ago in the midst of the winter pruning of rows of Pinot Noir on a lovely cool-climate vineyard in southern NSW. I’d always thought it was Taggy Mabberer but apparently not. Wikipedia reports that he was having it off with his son’s ex-girlfriend! The cheeky bugger! Sir Billy Sneddon, knight of the realm, in lust of Wendy, paid the ultimate sacrifice. Hilarious, really.
Canguro, gone out with his boots on and his pants off…so to speak.
Queensland cop on the prowl in Parliament yesterday, not only showing his lack of humanity in denying Palestinian refugees entry to Australia, but shouting down one of the most sensible women in the parliament who dared to suggest otherwise.
How long can hew last as opposition leader?
Oh wait, what do the options look like. Looks like is potato pete.
Fascinating that, from Canguro.
I watched a film years featuring Jeremy Irons called “Damage”.
Irons played a highflyer in London, a career politician who get caught by his son having it off with young bloke’s girlfriend. The lad stepped back in shock and tumbled over a balcony, to meet his maker. End in a big way for the Irons character, the politician, who is last seen holed up in some slum, unshaven, in what looks like Africa or South America.
Didn’t Fraser get caught with his trousers down at some past time as well?
As for Dutton, I think he is more than just a thug, he is a nasty vision for a totalitarian future.
Canguro, agreed we will be waiting forever that main stream media take their responsibility seriously, holding our politicians to account across all the metrics that should be met individually and collectively. They are given a very soft ride by the very people supposedly trained to conduct rigorous investigation and examination then report without fear or favour to we the constituents, their employers.
So msm aren’t doing their job, my glass half empty sense is that enforced exposure to what we punters say about them would amount to little more than being flogged with a bunch of feathers where nine long strands of barb wire would be more effective.
As bad as it is here, pity the citizens of the USA. The msm there particularly Fox are falling over themselves trying to get trump sic, a second term. What’s that they get the government they deserve? It is hard to believe, he almost proves that all the people can be fooled all of the time, alright a bloody large portion of the people.
Enough already, Winter prunings, Pinot Noir, noble labour sir, I salute you, your blood’s worth bottling just not the same bottle containing the heavenly nectar.
We saw an interesting twist to democracy in the NSW local council Liberal nominations – they weren’t submitted in time and thus do not qualify – evidently the girl in the office didn’t get around to submitting the paperwork and the blokes were all too important or too busy to follow up. Or was it a conspiracy concocted by the Labor party to flush Liberal councillors ?
Some have suggested, unfairly in my view, that the NSW Liberals couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery and I take great exception to that as I know they could, with adequate resources and staffing, do just that : in fact, it is suggested by some that, that is what the blokes were doing at the time.
PS: could somebody please lose Michaelia Cash’s paperwork before the next election – thank you in advance.
Canguro, rumour at the tme, with connection possibility, had it that the lady was Billy Mc Mahon’s widow,
P Duddy’s main problem, like that of his hero The Trumpster, is that there are no baffles between the nasty and scum laden part of his brain and his 1970’s el cheapo blow up plastic sex doll mouth.
Jesus,GL, I wish I’d thought of that.
Hm, who do you believe a lying thug or five leaders of the Lebanese Muslim community? Well, gosh, that’s a hard one.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-says-he-apologised-for-lebanese-muslim-remarks-community-leaders-never-heard-it-20240817-p5k36a.html
Meanwhile, back at the Duttonate, strewth to power, init. Everyone’s putting it out there trying to decide whether it’s irony or absurdity when it comes to wrangling the almighty dogs. When really even when he whistles them, the dogs don’t give a rats. Dutts, having read bits of our redundant crownglorious Constitution, the Mandate, and the WZO Constitution, obviously decided it best to lick the arse of the Crown and go full bore with Trumpery. Seems he doesn’t want to be let off the lead.
No wonder the Qld coppers gave him a can of Biff when he departed.
How very sad for theDumbberals. If they didn’t spend 95% of their time fighting and squabbling like little children amongst themselves then this probably wouldn’t have occurred. Oh, yes, 4% of the remainder is their whining and whinging in general.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/17/nsw-liberal-party-demands-extension-after-missing-council-elections-deadline-in-monumental-stuff-up-ntwnfb
P Duddy, the whiny little slug isn’t happy. Until it’s confirmed in other papers, so to speak, take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, Zali should be able to use parliamentary privilege. I wonder if the Thugspud has thought of that?
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/dutton-reportedly-seeks-legal-advice-after-steggalls-racist-dig-over-gaza-visas/news-story/f3ccd69d1042b0e7496b612689f536e4
On a side note: Gosh, what a great big non-surprise when Mr Stadium and his team, the Hobart Cronies, are in charge of ruining…running the state.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-19/independent-report-into-tasmania-financial-position/104236274
Poor Pete is looking at defamation for the gross insult of the truth that he is a racist…. damn it, also a bully.
Such infantile behaviour, ego is dented, let’s sue for repairs.
Zali Steggle appeared on a Sky interview where it was obvious that the Sky team were trying to get her to say that Dutton was a racist (beyond the scope of parliamentary privilege). I think she avoided the trap but what a low act.
Terence,
Agreed. Sky was helping a maattee out by trying to trap her into repeating what she said in parliament on TV. I imagine Thugspud and his lawyers (obviously thinking that she would be silly enough to sink hereself) were watching and listening with bated breath so they could leap on it and set the ball rolling for a defamation suit.
Truth is Dutton is trying to stir this into a racial, ethnic, drama. Dutton really does seem to think that he can rattle up the racists to generate racism, intolerance, and hatred.
Its time the media started to call him out on why he is has so bombastically backed Bibi and ignores the genocide happening in Gaza at the hands of israel.
ANON
Dutton has just returned from a trip to Israel was paid for by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. He has no interest in the Palestinian people.
In his posturing over refugees, Dutton ignores the fact that there are no people leaving Gaza at the present time, they can’t leave, the borders are closed by the IDF.
Dutton has a track record of suing in defamation to shut people up – not a good look for a man who seeks to lead this country.
You may remember that Dutton sued refugee activist Shane Bazzi after Bazzi had called him a ‘rape apologist’. Dutton in one of his interviews on Sky News in 2019 had asserted that some women on Nauru “have claimed that they’ve been raped and came to Australia to seek an abortion”. Dutton suggested they were “trying it on” in order to secure a medical transfer to Australia.
Dutton’s case was thrown out on appeal and Bazzi awarded costs – most of which were covered by a crowd funding appeal which was well supported.
The question raised at the time, and which Dutton seems to have ignored, was that it is unseemly for politicians to be suing people in the defamation courts when they themselves are granted parliamentary privilege to say what they wish in parliament without any fear of being sued.
True Terrence, Dutton does have an appalling track record, yet oddly didn’t sue Friendly Jordie about his youtube allegations.
Dutton is trying so hard to get Albo to rise to his dog-whistling bait.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Senator Katy Gallagher and CEO of ACOSS Cassandra Goldie,
I left a number of comments on this website regarding 2 illegal debt schemes I reported to all of you earlier. None of you ever acknowledged the schemes nor took action to stop the abuse.
Welfare recipients are unaware of the schemes because of their vulnerability. Australian taxpayers are unaware they pay for the administration and consequences of the schemes.
The schemes are as follows;
Scheme # 1. Services Australia issue illegal debt notices based on so called objections letters which are non-legally binding documents. Services Australia never conducted a formal review of their initial decision and forced me into significant debts without any legal document that allowed them to do so.
Scheme # 2. family Assistance Office automatically issue debt notices for 100% rent assistance payments if a parent was ineligible for its 15% FTB -dependent supplement. This is illegal.
I was paying massive debts for 3 consecutive years as a result of the abuse. The impact on the most vulnerable people is even worse. Anthony Albanese, Katy Gallagher and Cassandra Goldie, you have to explain your inaction to the public.
The nasty teenager with the glue on beard says words:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/send-gazans-in-australia-back-home-after-the-war-paterson-20240820-p5k3r4.html
GL, pot, kettle, black. 🙁
The nasty teenager with the glue on beard said, “if people fail screenings on character grounds, they should be removed from Australia.”
My question is this: Is there a way that such screenings can be applied to people like this amateur thespian with the glue on beard, such that his removal from this country can also be expedited? Perhaps send him to Gaza, and forced to work as an orderly dealing with the daily horror of caring for the wounded, the traumatised, the maimed, and the deceased?
all Dutton has done is confirmed our low opinion of the Trump wannabe. Throw as much shit around and wait to see what sticks.
Minorities are easy targets and Dutts is playing by the book. I think a few more issues getting the dutts treatment will make people start to think he is nuts. Its the only play he has cause i dont see any work on good policies.
That ‘nasty teenager with the glue on beard’ always makes me think of Banjo Patterson’s description of the city people in his poem, Clancy of the Overflow.
“And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.”
Like Trump, Dutton has a limited range of arguments and sees the world in terms of black or white with no shades of grey.
He made no mention of the 800+ Israeli refugees who recently arrived nor the likelihood of Hamas supporters already existing within the local population – likely defined as those who speak out against genocide, although he automatically labels them as anti-Semites.
The conservative political strategy has always been to divide and get voters to fight among themselves and maybe he sees this as another Tampa opportunity.
I just remembered who P Duddy (except The Thugspud isn’t funny) reminds me of: See if you pick the winner.
NSW Libs…in other words they discovered that it was going to be a giant boot up the arse and ran away only to make themselves look even more childish and moronic.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-libs-abandon-court-challenge-over-nomination-debacle-20240820-p5k3z4.html
If the effing “We have called for a temporary pause on approving visas from Palestinian document holders in Gaza…” cretin had said that right from the start the dipshit wouldn’t have to do this crawling backflip on his earlier rants. He’s been stung badly by the righlty deserved reactions he has received so he’s trying to show that he’s a nice guy.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/20/peter-dutton-tells-coalition-party-room-he-only-wants-temporary-pause-on-gaza-visas-as-part-of-principled-stance
My mother had a saying that she used mainly to belittle bullies and small minded people with no imagination, it always made us kids laugh :
Little things amuse little minds, Little trousers fit little behinds
I have no idea where the saying came from but I was reminded of it when I read that Peter Dutton and Barnaby Joyce had abandoned their R M Williams elastic side boots – which they in common with other federal politicians had adopted as their ocker Aussie uniform de rigueur – in favour of Rossi boots.
Why would they do this ? Well it turns out that Twiggy Forrest bought R M Williams and continues to manufacture boots in Australia but the coalition don’t like Twiggy for idealogical reasons. So, when Gina Rinehart bought competitor Rossi Boots, which I am assured are manufactured offshore but which do have Aussie heritage, they transferred their allegiance from RM and Twiggy to Rossi and Gina.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-10/gina-rinehart-rossi-boots-show-the-power-of-fashion-in-politics/104189792
https://everythingaustralian.com.au/303-endura-boot-claret.html?srsltid=AfmBOopzalAvp0Q91XyNIqW-VhVIQ_rIBemBIRdWciq98blV5hDaa6IS
For the Record : Peter Dutton has spent that past week disrupting parliamentary Question Time with issues related to visas granted to Palestinians seeking to avoid being killed in Gaza. In fact nobody is leaving Gaza currently as Israel is stopping anybody leaving the war zone.
What is interesting to note is that with all this puff about visas we have forgotten, it seems, that on 17 August “The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF called for a humanitarian pause in Gaza for 7 days to allow two rounds of polio vaccination to take place, following the recent detection of the virus in environmental samples and the identification of three suspected cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in children”.
Israel has refused to respond to this request or to stop bombing or to allow in humanitarian aid to commence polio vaccinations in children : is it antisemitic to mention that ?
I would love to be able to quote from two books published by Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian writer and scholar, who spent six years on Manus Island,
His books are “No Friend but the Mountain” (Pan MacMillan, 2018) and “Freedom, Only Freedom” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)
Some of his work was transmittted by phone to Australia from Manus. Eventually he escaped to New Zealand.
His work has been widely distributed.
In the “Freedom” book he has mentioned Morrison and Peter Dutton numerous times. Dutton was Home Affairs Minister. Boochani speaks of the lies.
But of course both political parties jailed refugees.
Details of a sad period of our history.
Peter Dutton has now moved on from the Palestinian security problem, as he did from his nuclear brainfart, and we can all now sleep securely in our beds until the next issue that he drags from his knapsack of dirty tricks.
With the federal election not too far off I am going to speculate that his next gambit into national security and community fear will be China. I am expecting that he will soon be crying wolf about a threat to our well being emanating from China and only the LNP can save us from being overrun by Chinese hoards who he sees as lusting after the wide brown land.
Then, again if he can crank up the people smuggling industry that could well be his next ploy if only more boats would form an armada to invade our shores.
I see the CLP in the Northern Territory have now wrested office from Labor on the back of a highly racist scare campaign on community crime and a promise to get tough with Aborigines : Spud will be offering his congratulations.
Terrence, the NT is a special kind of place where the voter turnout in Indigenous communities is low, and racism is the lingua franca amongst the settlers. It beggars belief that anyone can be surprised at the level of crime when there is such social divide.
I am beginning to be more cynical about politics, as when there is a change of political guard, the same people are in the jobs delivering public ‘service’, like health, police, education, etc… so very little changes. Its about time that people, individuals, are held to account, instead of hiding behind entities like Child safety dept, or police dept. For example, Zachary was hauled up to explain his actions in killing Kumanjayi Walker, but the before too long it becomes a police dept issue.
As Xavier Herbert said, “Poor Fella my Country”
Mouse
I see that the first order of business for the new CLP Leader is to meet with the Police Commissioner and plan an attack to ‘stamp out crime in the NT, build more prisons and youth detention facilities, reintroduce ‘spit-hoods’ and reverse the Labor legislation (which increased the age for criminal responsibility) from twelve back to ten years of age.
I wonder if the Police Commissioner (who apologised to Aboriginal people at Garma for police actions in the past) will survive this new broom.
Seems Laura Tingle was spot on.
The poor NT police commissioner might find he has a few more against him within the force than outside.
If the new CLP unleash the racists, they may not like what they get. Being called out as a racist government might be the best scenario they can hope for. The odd thing is they don’t like to be called racists, or be negatively compared to south African apartheid.