Human Rights Commission to Decide Racial Discrimination Complaint Against Peter Dutton

The Australian Human Rights Commission has accepted a racial discrimination complaint against Liberal opposition leader Peter Dutton, which accuses the potential next prime minister of this country with having incited hatred against Palestinians, Jews and Muslims.

Lodged in late November 2024, the legal action has been brought by a group of 10 complainants, including prominent Jewish Professor Peter Slezak and well known president of APAN (the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network) Nasser Mashni, while law firm Birchgrove Legal is providing representation.

Birchgrove Legal principal solicitor Moustafa Kheir outlined last week that the complaint details 25 separate instances in which Dutton has engaged in racial hatred in clear breach of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), and it too contemplates how the Liberal leader’s comments on the Gaza genocide have breach the 1948 Genocide Convention and the 2002 Rome Statute.

“Among the allegations Mr Dutton has been accused of includes the endangerment of Australian Jewish people through the deliberate conflation of the state of Israel with Jewish identity, which has seen a rise in antisemitism,” Kheir added in a 31 January statement.

This development means that not only does the International Criminal Court (ICC) have a genocide complicity complaint against our PM, Anthony Albanese, and the leader of the Liberal opposition in its possession, but the man currently leading the polls, Peter Dutton, has made such racially divisive public statements over the last 16 months that the AHRC considers they warrant investigation.

Discriminating on multiple fronts

“In a Chanukah message in December 2024, Mr. Dutton condemned the International
Criminal Court as being engaged in a ‘sordid moral inversion’ for attempting to uphold
international criminal law to protect Palestinians,” Kheir continued in his statement.

“My clients are gravely concerned that someone who could very well be the next prime minister
of Australia not only holds such racist and xenophobic views but publicises those views
nationally, inciting others to engage in the same rhetoric and discrimination,” the lawyer underscored.

The AHRC president will investigate whether Dutton has engaged in unlawful discrimination in respect of 25 incidents, which include making statements suggesting Palestinians coming to Australia fleeing the genocide posed a national security risk, propagating Israeli propaganda against Palestinians and making disparaging comments about Muslims running for elections.

After Dutton updated his listing of interests in the Register of Members Interests on 23 December with “ongoing legal assistance from Arnold Bloch Leibler re legal matters”, there’s been speculation that the Liberal leader may be receiving pro bono legal support from the firm that bears the name of one of the nation’s most prominent Zionists, Mark Leibler, in relation to the AHRC complaint.

“In the current international legal climate where Australia’s obligations are clear, these
relentless attacks on human rights go well beyond reasonable discourse and my clients are
demanding better from our national leaders,” the Birchgrove Legal principal made certain.

Complicit in genocide

The same law firm presented ICC prosecutor Karim Khan with The Conduct of Members of the Parliament of Australia, in Relation to the Situation in Gaza, Palestine: Accessorial Liability for Genocide communiqué on 4 March 2024, which charged Australian PM Albanese with complicity in the Gaza genocide, but, as has been less highlighted, Dutton was also flagged as a violator.

Led by Cloisters Chambers barrister Sheryn Omeri KC and co-signed by over 100 other Australian lawyers, the Birchgrove Legal claim is a 92 page document detailing multiple incidents leading to Albanese being the first leader of a western nation to be referred to the ICC for prosecution.

“As set out in the communication to the ICC, over the last 10 months Australian leadership has failed to attempt to dissuade their Israeli counterparts from committing war crimes in Gaza and, it appears, have continued to participate in the provision of fighter jet parts to Israel,” said Omeri in a statement last July. 

However, Liberal leader Dutton should share some of the limelight as he too is implicated in the legal claim, as is current foreign minister Penny Wong, defence minister Richard Marles, then minister for home affairs Clare O’Neil and then government services minister Bill Shorten.

Birchgrove Legal then announced that the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC had added the document “to the evidence gathered as part of the ICC’s investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine” last July, as well as having been transmitted “to relevant staff members for further review”.

The ICC issued international arrest warrants against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, which involve multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to the Gaza genocide, and this legal action was taken in relation to the broader ICC Palestine investigation that now includes the claims against Dutton and Albanese.

Dog whistling denied

But while no one is holding their breath in terms of the ICC issuing arrest warrants against the names of an array of this nation’s top politicians for complicity in genocide, the AHRC is to come to the table with a decision on the complaint against Dutton who has built up a reputation for regularly making racially prejudicial comments during press conferences over the years.

A racial discrimination complaint can be made when someone is said to have caused another to be treated less favourably because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin or immigration status, and racial hatred occurs, when something is done in public based a person or a group because of one of these attributes, which is likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate them.

If the AHRC does find that someone has breached the Act, then a number of outcomes can be imposed, which include the provision of an apology or compensation, discrimination training, a confidential settlement can be reached via conciliation, or in more serious cases, a complaint can result in court action.

But whatever the outcome of the racial discrimination complaint currently being contemplated by the AHRC, it’s certainly not the type of proceedings one would expect to be underway in respect of an individual who may potentially be elected into the nation’s top ministerial position in the coming months.