Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the House on the government's efforts to assist persecuted minorities seeking refuge from terrorism in Syria and Iraq? What steps has the government taken to ensure the integrity of the program?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question and I want to say, 'Thank you' to all of the colleagues on this side of the parliament and, indeed, all of the parliament for the support of the government's program in bringing people in through the Refugee and Humanitarian program. I want to pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, and the current Prime Minister for their stewardship of this very important policy. The government has consistently said that one of the dividends of stopping boats would be that we want bring people in the right way and we have done that.

As we have tragically seen in London over the course of the last few days and as we have seen elsewhere around the world, we do need to make sure that the people we are bringing into our country through any migration program are the right people—those people who are going to contribute to our country to build a new life here, to educate their children, to make sure they provide a better future for generations that would never have been imagined previously. We have to do that as opposed to bringing in people who may seek to do harm to our fellow Australians and so we have taken very seriously the objective to scrutinise each and every one of the applicants within this intake. We have given ourselves the very best chance to make sure that all of these people who are coming in under the Syrian and Iraqi program will contribute to our country and will be great Australians.

I can inform the House that in an unprecedented attempt to scrutinise through biometric testing and in collaboration with our five eyes partners we have looked at each and every application and we have excluded 30 or so applicants who have had adverse biometric matches on national security grounds. A number of individuals have also received an adverse security assessment. None of these people have travelled to our country; none ever will. The reality is that we have been able to save lives through this program. I want to pay tribute to those people in our offices—particularly in Amman, in Beirut, in Ankara and Dubai—and those staff who went with the assistance of security officials into the northern part of Iraq, a very dangerous zone, to rescue Yazidi women from that zone. Some of the stories relayed to us are absolutely horrific—absolutely horrific. As Australians all of us should stand proud not only with the success we have presided over in this program but with how all of these people will contribute in a positive way to our country into the future. That is what our measured and successful migration program is about. The Australian public have demonstrated over a long period of time that, if governments of the day have their migration programs in check, they will support these investments into the humanitarian program.