Peter Dutton has assured Coalition MPs he is only calling for a temporary pause in allowing people from Gaza to come to Australia, after some were concerned he wanted a permanent ban.
In his weekly address to the Coalition party room, Dutton insisted the Coalition had taken “a principled stance” in challenging the visa approval process for applicants from Gaza and demanding greater security checks.
“We have called for a temporary pause on approving visas from Palestinian document holders in Gaza, just until the security situation stabilises and the government can assure Australians proper checks are being undertaken,” Dutton is understood to have said.
He said Australia was “a big-hearted and generous nation” but was obliged to ensure appropriate security checks were done.
Some in the Coalition have indicated privately that they would be concerned if the opposition leader was advocating to permanently refuse visas to people from Gaza. But they said they were satisfied that the opposition leader had clarified that he was only calling for a temporary pause.
In the party room, his almost-week-long campaign casting doubt on the security processes around issuing visas to Palestinians won support. He is calling for future visa applicants from Gaza to be subjected to face-to-face interviews – something that could only be done once the Gaza border reopened and people could be assessed in another country before being approved to travel to Australia.
The opposition continues to press the government over its handling of the visa process, devoting every question in Tuesday’s House of Representatives question time to the issue.
The shadow immigration minister, Dan Tehan, demanded to know how many visas issued to people from Gaza had subsequently been cancelled.
Government-issued figures indicate that 2,922 visas were granted to people holding a Palestinian Authority travel document between 7 October and 12 August and 7,111 applications were refused. Most of those granted were visitor visas.
The government says that during the same period, 43 Palestinian visitor visas were subsequently cancelled – all while the visa-holders were still offshore. Twenty of these were later reinstated.
“We’re being guided every single step of the way by our security agencies,” Anthony Albanese said. “What our agencies do is to constantly examine issues. That doesn’t stop when someone is granted a visa.”
The prime minister said it was “an ongoing process”.
Albanese said it was “unbelievable” that the Coalition was seeking details about visa cancellations when Dutton routinely refused to provide information as home affairs minister.
Earlier on Tuesday, the opposition demanded that the government guarantee no one granted a visa from Gaza since the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel would be allowed to stay permanently in Australia.
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“We don’t think permanent visas is the right approach,” the shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, said. “We think temporary protection visas under the former government was the right approach. That allows people to be safe and stay here while they can, but to return home when it’s safe to do so.”
Paterson said Canada had only accepted 254 people from Gaza since the 7 October attacks, France 260, Italy 156 and the US 17.
Earlier in the Coalition party room, Dutton said he remained concerned that the government’s decisions were making Australia less safe through “a murky process” of visa approvals. He suggested Labor was selling out national security for political reasons.
In parliament, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, accused him of being “on the dog whistle”.
“Every single question on the Middle East,” Chalmers said in question time. “Not one question on middle Australia … They are playing politics on national security because they are hopeless on economics.”
Dutton tried unsuccessfully to have parliament silence the treasurer.
Finishing his answer when question time resumed after the house voted down Dutton’s motion, Chalmers had another rhetorical jab.
“That break was actually useful,” Chalmers said. “It was a good opportunity to clean up the little shards of the opposition leader’s glass jaw over there, Mr Speaker. Another display of extreme weakness and extreme sookiness from the leader of the opposition.”