Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The disgraced and now sacked Minister Giles was responsible for releasing 152 hardened criminals, noncitizens, from immigration detention into the Australian community when he didn't need to do so.

Government members interjecting—

I hear the cries opposite. Go and talk to the elderly lady in Perth who was attacked by one of these people who had been released by Minister Giles and to the others who have fallen victim to these hardened criminals since they were unnecessarily released by the Albanese government.

Not only was that botched, but now we know that 3,000 people were issued with visas and that 1,300 of them have been allowed into our country—not under the refugee and humanitarian program but on visitor visas. Some people have tried to equate this to the number of visitor visas that have been issued to people from Israel, which is an absolute outrage. When comparing people who come from Israel on a visitor visa, the comparable statistic is to the number of people who have come from London or the number of people who have come from New Zealand or the number of people who have come from Jordan on a visitor visa to our country. Israel is not run by a terrorist organisation. Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation.

A government member interjecting

I notice the Labor member there scoffing at that suggestion, but the fact is that Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation. The Israeli government is a democratically elected government. They are an ally of our country. They have helped thwart terrorist attacks in our country. If you look at public polling in the Gaza strip today, between 40 and 75 per cent of people have sympathy for the Hamas terrorist organisation. Imagine if the Howard government or the Morrison government had suggested that we would bring people in who are sympathisers to Saddam Hussein or to al-Qaeda or to ISIL or to ISIS. There would rightly have been public outrage and condemnation by the Labor Party. But the Labor Party has changed their policy to allow sympathisers of a listed terrorist organisation to come here under a visitor visa. It's without precedent.

I know that Minister Burke has been appointed to clean up the mess of Minister Giles, but the Prime Minister needs to come into this chamber to show the leadership and the strength of character that so far he has failed to demonstrate. The level of antisemitism in our country is at a record high. People in the Jewish community feel unsafe, and the director-general of ASIO has rightly raised significant concerns. The problem is that the Albanese government is contributing to social disharmony and to disruption in this country at a time when it's certainly not required. The Prime Minister has made a bad decision.

The Prime Minister in this chamber yesterday misled the Australian public when he said that what is happening today is akin to what happened when we brought people in from Syria. It is not. When we brought people in from Syria, we staged them in northern Iraq. We brought people in, or we assessed people who were in Jordan and Oman. I was criticised at the time as the minister because 12 months down the track we hadn't brought the full number in, and that's because we were testing people's verification of the claims that they were making and of their identity and whether or not they were on databases that the United States held. The United States held the intelligence because they had fingerprints and DNA of IEDs and the like out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan.

Ironically for this government, the Israeli government and security services would have the most significant holdings on those people who are sympathetic to Hamas and those people who would have been involved in, connected with or sympathetic to the attacks on kibbutzim and the attacks at the Supernova music festival, where 1,200 people were killed and over a hundred are still being held in the tunnel network.

That people could be brought from that region and that people could not be interviewed or that the government didn't have a process in place where there were face-to-face interviews is a complete and utter abrogation and failure of leadership of this Prime Minister. The fact that this Prime Minister has not come from his office this morning down to this chamber to answer these claims and to defend himself shows how weak he is.

The Australian public get it. They know that this country's been made less safe by Anthony Albanese. They know that this Prime Minister doesn't have the strength of character to provide the leadership to see our country through an uncertain period. For the Prime Minister now to have created this mess and not to be here to explain how he's going to clean it up shows how out of touch this Prime Minister has become and how he has failed his basic obligations as the Prime Minister of this country. Our country deserves strong leadership and the ability to make tough decisions which are in our country's best interests.

This is not against people of a particular religious belief. This is not against people of a particular political persuasion. This is about keeping our country safe, and Anthony Albanese has failed the Australian public and he should stand condemned. The fact that the Prime Minister cannot come to this chamber and provide an explanation and an apology for his misleading yesterday is a true reflection on his poor character. We deserve more as a country, and certainly every Australian deserves to feel safe but today, because of Anthony Albanese, the Australian public is less safe.

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