Government tells South Africa to ignore Creepy Pete

The Loon Pond has gone global, via The Guardian:

South African foreign ministry officials say they “could not believe” Peter Dutton’s comments about immigration and that when they asked Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, about them she effectively said they should ignore him.

In comments to Guardian Australia, Dutton has again rejected claims that Australia has retracted its offer to white South African farmers to settle them in Australia on humanitarian visas.

The difference of opinion suggests Australia has attempted to smooth over offence by walking back the home affairs minister’s earlier comments that South African farmers deserved “special attention” but will still consider any applications for visas in the existing humanitarian stream.

Meanwhile, Creepy Pete knows who to butter up, via The Australian:

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says any cabinet minister who doesn’t share his loyalty to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull should resign.

Asked whether he was loyal to Mr Turnbull days ahead of the prime minister’s likely 30th Newspoll loss on Monday, Mr Dutton said he wouldn’t be serving as a minister if he wasn’t.

Mr Turnbull used the impending loss of a 30th Newspoll as justification to challenge Tony Abbott for the prime ministership in 2015.

“I only accepted the offer to serve in the Prime Minister’s cabinet because I could give my loyalty to the leader, exactly the same formula I applied when Tony Abbott offered a position within his cabinet,” Mr Dutton told Sky News.

How come we don’t get to ignore him?