The Herald supports and defends free speech: the revelation of facts, public exposure of wrongdoing and vigorous contest of ideas. We also respect the responsibilities that come with free expression, so that we might serve you, the reader, and benefit all Australians.
As such we do not condemn Immigration Minister Peter Dutton for saying that the children and grandchildren of Lebanese Muslims who migrated to Australia under the Fraser government in the 1970s are among those arrested recently for terrorism offences.
What we do take umbrage with is the way Mr Dutton expressed himself and how he delivered his remarks. How ignorant – or deliberately blind – was he to the message he sent; and how conscious was he of the potential for his distorted use of statistics to actually increase the risk of radicalisation?
What exactly was the Minister trying to say? And what good did the Minister think would come from implying that a whole sector of Australians were likely criminals by virtue of their ethnicity and faith?
Mr Dutton told Parliament he had advice that "out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 are from second and third-generation Lebanese Muslim backgrounds". He said that "where I see extremism, I will call it out". It now turns out he meant to say 'convicted', rather than charged – but nonetheless, his message remains unaltered.
Mr Dutton did not just call out the minority "doing harm to Australians". He demeaned a whole community by association.
Had Mr Dutton argued at the outset that the government must continue to vet all immigrants to ensure radicals did not come here; had he made clear that the Muslim community needed to be ever stronger in helping to prevent radicalisation, and did so in most cases; had he said criminality would be tackled on the facts of each case, not on a gross, distorted generalisation: then we would cede his point.
Sure, he claimed – albeit some days after his original comments – that "the vast majority of Lebanese Australians are law-abiding, hard-working, good decent people who are besmirched by the small element within the community who are doing the wrong thing. I made that clear".
But by the time he made that clear, it was arguably as a case of too little, too late: it's an unfortunate fact that his remarks are seized upon by those who wish to give succour to racists.
What's more, Mr Dutton's use of statistics was way out of proportion. Initially on The Bolt Report he said that "if it can be demonstrated that we have a significant portion of a particular community – we're talking about the Sudanese community in this instance – then we need to work out what's gone wrong". Yet when applied to the Lebanese Muslims, he did not show such a significant proportion. Even he now says it is a "small number". Of the 180,000-odd Australians of Lebanese background, the figure of 22 represents less than 0.01 per cent. And that is one figure at one point in time.
The subtext seems to be to justify tough vetting of any migrant to Australia on ethnicity and faith grounds. The current case of Syrian refugees looms large. Mr Dutton told The Bolt Report that "a very high proportion within that 12,000 will be people that have, you know, a lot to fear because of their Christianity, because of their beliefs, they have a lot to fear from ISIL and from, in many cases, elements of the Assad regime".
Of course Australia should vet everyone on their merits. We need certain skills, people of good character and immigrants who respect our laws if we are to have a cohesive multicultural nation.
We need governments to send clear messages with a basis in respect, too. Yet Mr Dutton smeared thousands of people whose only crime was to have parents or family who fled Lebanon in the 1970s.
Yes, the Fraser government's "Lebanon Concession" was flawed. While it intended to help more Maronite Christians without refugee status to find safety from their war-torn nation, most chose not to come. Many Muslims were cleared as immigrants instead under a weak vetting process. The then government was told of the risks. Some radicalised immigrants settled here. No doubt a tiny minority of them and their successors remain a risk.
But we need to work with the vast majority of law-abiding Lebanese Muslim Australians to fight terrorism. Through inflammatory comments, however, Mr Dutton risks seriously undermining, or at worst destroying, that requisite trust.
Strong leadership is needed to rebuild it. And Mr Turnbull has a good spiel: "The glue that holds us together is mutual respect. Mutual respect. The recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity and opportunities."
His government's actions, however, fall far short of those words because, as he knows, his leadership depends on Mr Dutton and the divisive, anti-Muslim forces the minister is – whether intentionally or not – energising.