Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

More people came from Syria under visitor visas when they were in government, when ISIS was in charge of a large amount of Syria, than the 1,300 people who have come from the occupied Palestinian territories. Can I note this as well: there have been 5,491 visitor visas granted from Israel as well. And let me say this: those people are welcome here.

What is going on here is so obvious, and the member for Groom is certainly very conscious of it. You know it's a shocker when no-one on the frontbench will ask you. It goes up the back, in order to sledge a whole group of people who live in Western Sydney. I say this to those opposite: you can continue to sledge people in Western Sydney. What I'll continue to do as Prime Minister is represent the entire nation, including the good people of Western Sydney. They know that we take the same advice from the same security agencies, as the previous government did. We've rejected more than 7,000 visa applications. They also know—the member for Groom mightn't know, because he just asked the question he was given, so I don't blame him—that the Rafah Border Crossing is controlled by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities and it has been closed since May. But the member for Groom didn't come here from anywhere in the Middle East. Well, while people were coming in from the Middle East, under the previous government, the member for Groom wasn't here, to be fair, otherwise maybe he would have been asking questions in parliament about—

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