Australia slammed for Minister Peter Dutton’s climate joke, ‘insensitivity’ on refusing climate plea

Pacific Island leaders have taken offence at the apparent joke Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton made about the Pacific countries struggling against rising sea levels. During a meeting on Friday in Canberra, Dutton was caught by the media joking about "water lapping at your door" to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who laughed as well.

On Friday Sept 11, just hours after Abbott refused to accept the new climate change pledge from the Pacific countries during a forum in Papua New Guinea, Dutton was unintentionally recorded saying the Pacific Islands’ “time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door” while waiting for a meeting at Parliament House.

Dutton was with the prime minister, who had just returned from the Pacific Islands Forum, and Social Services Minister Scott Morrison. As Abbott chuckled upon hearing Dutton, Morrison pointed out that there was a live boom microphone above their heads from the covering media.

Kiribati President Anote Tong, one of the delegates at the forum, described Australia and New Zealand’s decision to reject the plea to commit to a tougher target for global warming limits as "disappointing." Tong also expressed ire on Dutton’s joke as it was “vulgar” and “quite unbecoming of leadership.”

Tony de Brum, Marshall Islands’s foreign minister and a high-profile advocate for climate change actions in the UN climate process, also expressed offence against Dutton. “As long as there is this kind of attitude, this kind of arrogance in any position of leadership, we will continue to have a lot of tension,” he told the ABC.

Meanwhile, the governor of the Oro province in Papua New Guinea, Gary Juffa, said that Abbott, in accepting Dutton’s comment, should apologise for “insensitivity towards all for laughing at climate change,” and added, “remove him next elections Australia, you deserve better.”

The Pacific islands have been facing the impacts of climate change over the past decade, with rising sea levels affecting residents in low-lying countries. In Kiribati and Marshall Islands, regular inundations and more severe droughts are already the climate burdens displacing people on several areas.

Dutton was also criticised by several opponents in the Australian government.

"It was a bad joke by a minister who is a bad joke," the leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten, told the ABC. Greens Senator Larissa Waters also added, “If there's a joke here, it's Abbott's climate policies."

With the growing tension, Dutton explained that it was a "private conversation with the prime minister," and has refused to comment on the joke. However, Abbott defended the Immigration minister, drawing the attention to his work on the refugee crisis.

“If there’s one thing that should be remembered about Peter Dutton’s week, it’s that this is the week that he masterminded the plan to bring 12,000 needy people to this country,” Abbott said.

Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite, however, asked Dutton to apologise for his joke, over concerns it may affect the relationship between Australia and its neighbouring countries, adding that “distasteful” comments will add “enormous damage”. He added that Dutton’s remark has made it more difficult to find a solution for the growing conflict between the Pacific nations and the Abbott government.

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