Victorian upper house MP Peter Kavanagh, from the Democratic Labor Party, wants Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, to be barred from Australia.

Mr Kavanagh told the Parliament that Islam backed up a fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie for his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

A fatwa, in the Islamic faith, is a religious opinion that concerns Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar.

''Although Yusuf now denies supporting attempts to murder Salman Rushdie, he is on record at the time for stating that he wanted to see Mr Rushdie himself burn - not just an effigy of him - and he would like to have reported Mr Rushdie's whereabouts to those who were trying to murder him,'' Mr Kavanagh said.

According to him, the folk singer made use of copyright to remove "statements by Mr Rushdie that Yusuf wanted him dead'' from the worldwide web.

Mr Kavanagh called upon Minister Chris Evans to refuse Islam a visa ''unless he publicly and categorically states that he does not and will not support the murder of any person for the expression of views, no matter how offensive''.

A spokesman for Senator Evans said visa decisions were decided by the department, not by the minister.

Islam said that he never supported the fatwa and that his comments were only a reference to blasphemy being a capital offence according to the Koran.