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Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has escalated his criticism of media outlets he says are waging a "jihad" against the government, describing the response to an aborted Australian Border Force operation in Melbourne as "hysterical" and ideologically driven.
Two days after he accused Fairfax Media and the ABC of trying to "bring the government down", Mr Dutton has told a radio interview that segments of the media were frustrated and angry the government was having success with Operation Sovereign Borders.
"All I can say is the reaction to the Australian Border Force operation in Melbourne was hysterical by some of these media outlets and it's hard to seek an explanation for that," Mr Dutton told 2GB's Ray Hadley show on Thursday.
Australian Border Force officials were to take part in a Victoria-police led operation on the streets of Melbourne last weekend before protests in Melbourne's central business district on Friday forced its cancellation.
"They [the media] run things. They don't check with my office beforehand," Mr Dutton told 2GB.
Although it is unclear which incident Mr Dutton is referring to, Fairfax Media sent questions to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection at 10.16am on the morning of Operation Fortitude. The department responded more than two hours later.
"A lot of it is about their [the media's] frustration and anger with the government over the success that we've had around Operation Sovereign Borders, stopping boats, running detention centres and people have got an ideological opposition to that," Mr Dutton said.
"Well I've got news for these people. The vast majority of Australians support the government's work to keep these boats stopped, to stop people drowning at sea."
The broadside comes a day after Prime Minister Tony Abbott and frontbenchers Josh Frydenberg and Michael Keenan distanced themselves from earlier remarks by Mr Dutton that "there's a huge move by Fairfax at the moment to try and bring the government down".
But in a second interview on Thursday morning, after his Ray Hadley appearance, Mr Dutton would no longer be drawn on the media "jihad" remarks.
Journalists at a media conference in Brisbane asked Mr Dutton if his colleagues had not supported his comments because he had gone too far.
"I don't agree with your characterisation. Comments about other people, you can put it to them," Mr Dutton said.
"I don't have comment further to make in relation to that matter."
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