Topics: Visa checks for Palestinians; Middle East tensions;
11:20AM AEST
7 August 2024
Tom Elliot: Liberal Party Senator for South Australia, he’s also the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Birmingham. Good morning.
Simon Birmingham: Good morning, Tom. Good to be with you.
Tom Elliot: Were you surprised when the former head of ASIO said someone who supports Hamas, you know, that shouldn’t stop them from being admitted as a refugee here?
Simon Birmingham: I am surprised by those remarks, and I hope the Albanese Government shows much more care and caution in how they administer our humanitarian program. Australia is one of the most generous countries in the world. We still continue to, on a per capita basis, take around the second highest number of refugees for permanent resettlement of any country. And as you rightly said, tragically, sadly, around the world, there’s no shortage of refugees who can be resettled into a country like Australia. Given that, we should take care to ensure those we are resettling come from needy circumstances and backgrounds, are genuine, worthy refugees, but also will make the most positive contribution to Australia not pose any threat or risk to Australia.
Tom Elliot: Do we check them? I mean, we admitted tens of thousands of people from the Syrian civil war, you know, five, six, seven years ago. Do we take adequate steps and will we take adequate steps for this crop of Palestinian refugees to make sure that there are no die hard Hamas fanatics amongst them?
Simon Birmingham: We took a lot of care for those we took from the Syrian civil war, and we should be taking that care with all of the entrants who come in. Technology has given us great capacity to do even more. Nowadays, we are able to undertake biometric testing, which enables checking against identification and therefore against the type of terrorist listings and security threats and checks that are available. The real concern about the more than 2000 visas the Albanese Government granted in the days and weeks following the October 7th terrorist attacks, to Palestinian document holders, many from Gaza, is that on average, they were granted within a 24-hour period, some granted just within one hour. It seems very hard to believe that those thorough checks, that biometric testing was undertaken against all of those visa holders.
Tom Elliot: And let’s just say we did get some fairly hardcore Hamas supporters admitted as refugees here. Do you think that would pose a threat to the community in Australia?
Simon Birmingham: Let’s be clear this week the terrorist threat in Australia was elevated officially by ASIO, and there are many different drivers of that. But certainly, religiously motivated, ideologically motivated extremism is a big part of that. People who fuel that extremism may not themselves be the ones who undertake the terrorist acts, but they are the ones who can provoke others into doing so. That’s why I’m so concerned by the statements that Iran’s ambassador to Australia has been making in recent times. These are provocative, these are inciteful, and they’re the types of remarks that have no place in a country like ours to fuel such anti-semitism and hatred that, tragically, can drive people to undertake terrorist attacks that we should be doing everything possible to avoid.
Tom Elliot: Thank you for your time. Simon Birmingham, the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
[ENDS]