Dutton echoes Trump, Musk and Carlson by peddling Great Replacement Theory

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s advocacy last week of the racist “Great Replacement Theory” is another step in the MAGAtisation of conservative politics in Australia, aligning the federal Coalition with Donald Trump, Elon Musk and an increasingly mainstream conspiracy theory that states parties of the left are manipulating immigration — particularly illegal immigration — for electoral advantage.

In comments (which, tellingly, have not been circulated by his office) to an event last Thursday organised by far-right channel Sky News, Dutton is reported to have said, in reference to refugees from Gaza: “Why would you bring people in from a war zone, without the requisite checks on a tourist visa, without precedent? Why would you do that? And, knowing that it’s territory controlled by a listed terrorist organisation, why would you expressly push people through the process to receive citizenship in advance of an election, which is pending?”

“They’re obsessed with the Green vote and they’re worried about losing seats. Without being political about it, but let’s be frank about the motivation … a couple hundred votes can swing an outcome, and will in the coming election … There will be a number of seats that are very tight, and that’s not a political statement, it’s a statement of fact. I think they’re reasonable questions for [Immigration Minister Tony] Burke and the prime minister to answer.”

Dutton linked his claims, without evidence, to reports the Home Affairs Department was “rushing through” citizenship ceremonies in coming weeks. However, the claims are, blow for blow, the Great Replacement Theory in its fully-fledged form — the idea that progressive elites are engineering immigration to give themselves an unfair electoral advantage. 

Originally the confection of white supremacists and far-right conspiracy theorists, the Great Replacement Theory drew attention when it was peddled on Fox News by far-right commentator Tucker Carlson in 2021. Carlson accused Democrats of seeking to “replace” Americans with “more obedient voters from the third world”. After a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York by an advocate of the theory in May 2022, Carlson feigned ignorance and then said “There is a strong political component to the Democratic Party’s immigration policy. We’re not guessing this.” He accused Democrats of admitting “we are doing this because it helps us to win elections”.

The Great Replacement Theory has been directly linked to other mass murders in the United States.

America’s leading campaigner against antisemitism, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has denounced the theory and says it is linked with antisemitism. In 2022, it called for Carlson and “other repeat perpetrators spreading the ‘Great Replacement’ theory” to be deplatformed, saying:

These racist and antisemitic ideologies posit a toxic overarching conspiracy that strikes at the heart of faith in the United States as workable democracy founded on fair, free and accessible elections. Instead they accuse Jews, ‘global elites’, Democratic leaders and others of using democratic institutions and processes to eliminate white Christian Americans — or what Tucker Carlson calls ‘legacy Americans’, thus providing the justification and incitement for undermining elections at any cost, and for political violence. 

Lachlan Murdoch backed Carlson at the time, but less than a year later, Rupert Murdoch sacked the presenter from the network.

However, since then the theory has been effectively mainstreamed within right-wing politics in the US. In late 2023, Elon Musk, who has repeatedly expressed concern about Western population collapse, accused the Biden administration of actively encouraging illegal immigration for electoral benefit. Carlson returned to Fox in 2024. And during his election campaign, Trump claimed — without evidence — that Democrats were facilitating illegal immigration, saying of illegal immigrants: “They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in, practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them into our country.”

The ADL’s strong denunciation of the Great Replacement Theory is ironic given Dutton’s remarks were to a purported antisemitism “summit”. The Sky News event, which featured disgraced former public servant and leaker Mike Pezzullo as a panellist, was held at a Sydney synagogue that has repeatedly hosted Dutton for media events. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was booed by Sky’s audience, including when he attempted to open his remarks with an Acknowledgement of Country.

Dutton’s claims, which weren’t challenged by the Sky News hosts, were easily debunked: it is impossible for anyone who has been in Australia for less than four years to be granted citizenship. The Home Affairs Department explicitly said in response that anyone arriving in the country after 2020 — which automatically includes any refugees from the most recent conflict in Gaza — is precluded from applying for citizenship until they have been a resident for at least four years. As a former immigration and Home Affairs minister, Dutton would have known this.

Dutton’s embrace of an overtly white supremacist narrative marks a further step in his long history of open racism: he has previously demonised Palestinian refugees as security threats, Sudanese refugees as criminals and Lebanese migrants as terrorists, contrasting them with white South Africans whom he claimed would integrate well.

However, this is the first time he has argued that non-white migrants are part of a conspiracy to subvert the will of white voters in Australia.

Dutton received mainstream media support on Friday morning on the Today show. Karl Stefanovic asked Dutton “that mischievous Tony Burke, what’s he up to in western Sydney, rushing through these citizenship ceremonies in marginal seats?”

Dutton responded: “He’s just pushing thousands of people through citizenship ceremonies without any explanation. The mayors are obviously up in arms about it, and it’s right on the eve of the election. So they’re obviously trying to put people into marginal seats…”

As the US experience shows, this is about far more than “mischief”.

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