First published on Wed 7 Apr 2021 02.29 EDT The defence minister, Peter Dutton, has begun issuing defamation threats to social media users for claiming he is a “rape apologist”. Dutton has decided to take a more aggressive stance against false and defamatory statements posted about him online, and has already extracted an apology from the Greens senator Larissa Waters. Waters accepted that there was “no basis” for her suggestion that Dutton “sought to conceal and dismiss reports of rape, and that he has no sympathy for victims” and that those imputations “were false”. “Apology to Peter Dutton On 25 February 2021 I published a media release on my website, posted on my Twitter account, and made in the course of a press conference false and defamatory statements that Peter Dutton is a rape apologist, that he has sought to conceal and dismiss 1/2— Larissa Waters (@larissawaters) March 24, 2021