Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has labelled the government’s claim that he oversaw the release of 1300 non-citizens during his time as immigration minister as a “smokescreen”.
Asked about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accusing the Coalition of releasing 1300 “hardcore criminals”, Dutton said he never watered down any laws.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton during the press conference, where he was joined by shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie (r) and assistant shadow defence minister Phillip Thompson (r).Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“I was, in some cases, given the advice that constitutionally, there was nothing further we could do in relation to particular cases, I never watered down any laws and I’m very happy to have the discussion but be properly informed instead of just trotting out the government’s lines,” he said.
“I’m happy to look at the brief and have a look at the detail, but it’s a smokescreen right, and to be honest, 95 per cent of the media aren’t reporting it because it’s a nonsense argument.”
Dutton then went on to lash the government for bringing in “over 900,000 people over two years but only building 65,000 homes”.
“No wonder we’ve got the housing crisis in our country, you’ve got housing approvals at an 11-year low and the government is not putting at the top of the list yoga teachers and knocking off the list carpenters, bricklayers and other tradespeople,” he said.
If the Coalition were to win government, Dutton said all tradespeople would be at “the top of our list”.
“We want to see more of those trades coming in because as everyone knows, the cost to build a house in our country has gone up dramatically,” he said.