This article is an instalment in a new series, “Peter Dutton is racist”, on Dutton’s history of racism and the role racism has played on both sides of politics since the 1970s.
Racism has been a recurring theme in Australian politics ever since the Whitlam government formally ended the White Australia Policy.
Labor — under Whitlam — resisted accepting South Vietnamese refugees (Whitlam is described as referring to them as “fucking Vietnamese Balts“), with Whitlam anticipating Peter Dutton by nearly 50 years in suggesting their ranks might include war criminals.
In opposition, Labor criticised the Fraser government’s willingness to welcome South Vietnamese refugees to Australia after 1975.
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