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

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) that in the course of question time on 15 August 2024, the Prime Minister purported to quote statements made by the Director-General of ASIO, Mr Mike Burgess, in a recent interview on Insiders;

(b) that the Prime Minister's purported quote specifically omitted key words with the effect of changing the fundamental meaning of Mr Burgess' statements; and

(c) that as a consequence the House was given an incorrect understanding that all visa applicants from Gaza are the subject of an ASIO assessment, whereas in fact this only occurs 'where criteria are hit';

(2) therefore calls on the Prime Minister to immediately attend the Chamber and speak for up to 15 minutes to explain:

(a) which visa applicants are the subject of a security assessment by ASIO;

(b) what are the criteria for ASIO to carry out a security assessment in relation to visa applicants from the Gaza war zone;

(c) how many of the almost 3,000 visas already issued by the Government were granted without an ASIO security assessment; and

(d) whether the House can have any confidence that under this Government's processes, there is a proper and thorough security assessment of all visa applicants from the Gaza war zone to determine whether the applicant would present a security threat to the Australian community; and

(3) resolves that no other business be considered until the Prime Minister undertakes the action requested in (2).

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion forthwith—That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) that in the course of question time on 15 August 2024, the Prime Minister purported to quote statements made by the Director-General of ASIO, Mr Mike Burgess, in a recent interview on Insiders;

(b) that the Prime Minister's purported quote specifically omitted key words with the effect of changing the fundamental meaning of Mr Burgess' statements; and

(c) that as a consequence the House was given an incorrect understanding that all visa applicants from Gaza are the subject of an ASIO assessment, whereas in fact this only occurs 'where criteria are hit';

(2) therefore calls on the Prime Minister to immediately attend the Chamber and speak for up to 15 minutes to explain:

(a) which visa applicants are the subject of a security assessment by ASIO;

(b) what are the criteria for ASIO to carry out a security assessment in relation to visa applicants from the Gaza war zone;

(c) how many of the almost 3,000 visas already issued by the Government were granted without an ASIO security assessment; and

(d) whether the House can have any confidence that under this Government's processes, there is a proper and thorough security assessment of all visa applicants from the Gaza war zone to determine whether the applicant would present a security threat to the Australian community; and

(3) resolves that no other business be considered until the Prime Minister undertakes the action requested in (2).

It's clear to every Australian that the Prime Minister has misled this parliament and has misled the Australian public. He didn't have the ability, the determination or the strength to come in here last week and answer these serious claims, and he's missing in action again today. This parliament has now sat for two hours today, and the Prime Minister should have come in here at the ringing of the bells to correct the record—to explain to the Australian public and to this parliament why he misled them in that fashion last week.

It's one thing to come into this parliament and to quote from a document. The Prime Minister is perfectly entitled to do that, as is any member. You might leave out a sentence for the purposes of brevity or to make a point, but you can't leave out the middle of one sentence that you're quoting and pretend that that is an accurate reflection of what has been said by the person you are quoting. It's beyond tricky; it's duplicitous.

This Prime Minister walks both sides of the street. The Australian public know that. The Australian public clearly are disappointed in this Prime Minister. We get that. He's made wrong decisions in relation to the renewables-only policy, which has driven up the price of energy and now the prospect of blackouts. We have a Prime Minister who has presided over different policies, including in housing and migration, that have made it harder for Australians to buy homes. We have young Australians who have lost the dream of homeownership because of the government's policy to bring in a million people over two years when they only build a quarter of a million homes. We have a Prime Minister who is walking both sides of the street, telling the Jewish community one thing and the Muslim community something completely different. He's telling the Indigenous community one thing in relation to the makarrata commission, which he has purposefully redesigned now to mean something else, even though there's money in the budget for a makarrata commission. So he's telling the Indigenous population one thing and the non-Indigenous population something other than what he's telling the first group. He walks into one room and says, 'This is the fact of this matter.' He walks into the adjoining room and tells the opposite to the group there. It is no wonder that people's disappointment has turned into dismay when it comes to Prime Minister Albanese.

In relation to this issue, it doesn't get any more serious than an allegation of a misleading of this parliament and the Australian public by the Prime Minister of our country. This is not a concocted outrage or some interpretation of a quote. It's a completely and utterly scandalous approach by the Prime Minister, and he can't come to this chamber. I've watched seven prime ministers, who have come from both sides of this parliament, and I have never seen a circumstance where a prime minister of the day is accused of misleading this parliament and doesn't have the strength of character to come down here and to argue his corner—because he knows he's done the wrong thing.

The obligation under the standing orders and the practice of this place means that the Prime Minister at the first available opportunity needed to correct the record. Mr Speaker, as you would recall, I raised with you during the course of question time, when it was brought to my attention, the fact that the Prime Minister had selectively misquoted the director-general of ASIO. I don't believe that the Prime Minister has a leg to stand on here, and that's why he's not coming into this chamber. What it says, every hour that ticks by now where the Prime Minister doesn't come to this chamber, is that he can't be honest with the Australian public.

We know that the Australian public believes that our country is heading in the wrong direction under the Albanese government. This government has made decisions which have not helped Australians but harmed Australians. Up until this point, it has been in relation to economic matters. People's grocery prices have gone through the roof under this government. The price that they're paying for insurance has gone through the roof. For their mortgage, interest rates have gone up 12 times, whilst interest rates are falling in New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The government has made wrong decisions, but, up until now, we haven't seen examples of decisions made by this government which have made our country less safe, except, of course, for Minister Giles's actions when he released 152 hardcore criminals who were noncitizens and had committed crimes against citizens—rape, paedophilia, armed robbery and murder. In error, the then minister released those people into the Australian community, and—you wouldn't believe it—they went on to commit more crimes. Who would have thought? The tragedy of that reality is that there is a human being, there is an Australian citizen who is a victim, behind each one of those crimes. We should never forget the face of that elderly lady in Perth who fell victim very early to one of these individuals.

Minister Giles has decided to bring people in on tourist visas from a war zone which is controlled by a listed terrorist organisation. The Prime Minister got up here and said to us that everyone had been checked through the ASIO process. They have not been. The selective quoting, by leaving out those words that Mr Burgess had given to David Speers over on Insiders, served the misrepresentation and backed up the position of the Prime Minister, which turned out to be false.

If you bring people in on a tourist visa, it's like coming from the United States, from New Zealand or from other parts of the world where a visa is issued automatically. It's issued automatically without the checks and balances of somebody who would come here through the refugee and humanitarian program. The Prime Minister said to the Australian public that what they had done as a government under Minister Giles, by bringing people here on tourist visas, was akin to, or a replication of, what we had done when we brought people into Australia from Syria.

The complete opposite is the case. We brought people here through the refugee and humanitarian program. It didn't take 24 hours to get a visa, as it does if you're a tourist. It took in some cases 12 months because we had to collect biometrics. We had to collect all of that information to check against databases. The Prime Minister will have you believe that somehow that's what happened here. It's not.

Let's look very quickly at what went towards covering up the fact of his mistake—the egregious and potentially very consequential mistake that he has made here. Let's look at what Mr Burgess said. He said they've gone through a visa process:

If they've been issued a visa, they've gone through the process. Part of that visa process is, where criteria hit, they're referred to my organisation and ASIO does its thing.

The Prime Minister missed those words: 'visa process is where criteria hit', and that is essentially undermining the credibility of this Prime Minister.

This Prime Minister has lost his integrity, he has lost his credibility, he has let down the Australian public, he has made us less safe, he is the weakest leader in our country's history and Australians are suffering because of it—not just economically and not just financially. This Prime Minister has now weakened the security settings in our country and he should be here defending himself.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion is seconded. I didn't think that we'd get to this stage, but this is where we've got to. We've got to the fact that the prime minister now is as hopeless and hapless as the previous minister for immigration. As a matter of fact, they are peas in a pod. If you think about what has happened and the track record of both now, they're exactly the same

The former minister for immigration let 152 detainees out on the street and then came into this place and said they had all been issued with visas and had conditions placed on them. Then what did we find out down the track? That hadn't happened. FOIs showed us that some of them—and as the Leader of the Opposition has said, hardened criminals, murderers, sex offenders, child sex offenders—had been released without visas and without conditions placed on them. Did the Prime Minister, when he knew about that, require the former minister for immigration to come in here and admit that he had misled this parliament? No, he didn't. And now we know why, because if he had required him to do that, he would be in here today doing exactly the same thing. Yet where is he? Where is he? No-one knows. And what has he been accused of? It is not just misleading the parliament in some form, which is sort of irrelevant. What he has done is he has misquoted the director-general of ASIO. How can you not quote the director-general of ASIO in the correct form and think that you can get away with it? I'm glad the new minister for immigration is here because I hope to hell, for the Australian people's sake, that he isn't as hopeless and hapless as the previous minister for immigration and the prime minister.

Let's look at what the prime minister has done. He was asked a very simple question, which goes to the No. 1 priority of this government: was everyone who came into this country from the Gaza war zone properly given a security check—every single one of them? And the prime minister said, 'Yes, they had.' Now we know that is not the case, and there is nothing that the new minister for immigration can show us or prove to say that what the Prime Minister has said was correct. The Prime Minister stands condemned today, the former minister for immigration stands condemned today, and what we will wait to hear now is whether the new minister for immigration has any explanation for two things. The first is: where is the Prime Minister and why won't he come and defend his honour? Because he knows he's wrong. He knows he has misled this place. The second thing we want to hear from the new immigration minister is: what was done to make sure that Australians are going to be kept safe from the people that have come in from the Gaza war zone? If we don't hear answers to those two things, then you might as well not get up and say anything.

The other thing that will be very interesting to see while you're here defending the Prime Minister is whether the Prime Minister will come in to listen to the new minister for immigration defend him. Will he? Do you reckon he will? What do you think? I've got a feeling that the PM won't turn up. He'll stay in his office watching on the television because he's gutless. He won't come in here and defend himself. That is weakness at its worst and that is why he stands condemned today.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If there was ever a motion that said that the Leader of the Opposition is not fit for office, it's what he's put in writing right now. Let me just go to a couple of clauses. As Leader of the Opposition, he gets security briefings. In his previous portfolio as Minister for Defence, he received security briefings. In his portfolio before that, in home affairs, he received security briefings. So how on earth does someone with that sort of background move the following things in this parliament?

In this resolution, he wants a public declaration letting visa applicants know if they're the subject of a security assessment. Just here in the privacy of the House of Representatives, he wants us to publicly let it be known if someone is being subjected to a security assessment right now. Instead of letting the agencies do it in their normal way, let's just, just between us, let it be known on the floor of the House of Representatives, where no-one else will hear. Name one time when anyone wanting to be Prime Minister has said something as idiotic as that. If you want to say you care about national security, the first thing you don't do, if you're conducting a security assessment on someone, is let them know. You don't ring them up and say: 'Hey, this is what we think we've got on you. This is what we think we're checking on you. Would you mind if we had a public conversation about it?'

The Leader of the Opposition knows this is madness, or at least he used to know that. But right now, when he sees the chance to get angry, when he sees the chance to have a fight, all the national security principles go completely out the window. The national security of Australia doesn't matter when it gets in the way of his political interest. Why else would he put something like that in a resolution?

But it doesn't stop there. The next paragraph after that is even more bizarre. He wants a public answer to this: what are the criteria for ASIO to carry out a security assessment? So he wants everything that he may have been told in private briefings over a large proportion of his career to now become a public discussion on the floor of the House of Representatives. You do know that there are public galleries?—no aspersions on any of the people up there; I'm glad you're here. You do know that this is broadcast? I don't know who watches the broadcast. I don't know why people watch the broadcast from time to time, and I certainly don't know why anyone watches the broadcast when something as irresponsible as this is being put before the parliament. To have a public discussion on a national security issue about what criteria ASIO use and who is currently subjected to an assessment would have to be the most irresponsible thing you could do.

But it's not the first time this person has been irresponsible, because this lack of responsibility has paved his whole career. You only have to look at the time delay. It wasn't much more than the six-second delay on radio between Mike Burgess as the director-general of ASIO telling people to cool the temperature and this guy running along with a bucket of kerosene saying, 'Where can I throw it on the fire?' And he's got form on trying to divide the Australian community. Look at who he said he won't fight for. Look at who he said we should all be suspicious of. At the moment we've got a debate where he's wanting to go after Palestinians, but before that it was Africans, Lebanese people and Muslims. Granted he hasn't tried to declare war on every migrant community; he did stand up for white South African farmers. We remember that.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House will pause. The Manager of Opposition Business?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On standing order 90—that all imputations of improper motives to a member shall be considered highly disorderly—we've just heard the Leader of the House going for several minutes attributing a whole range of improper motives to the Leader of the Opposition. It's a breach of the standing orders, and he should be asked to comply with the standing orders.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If that were to apply, the member for Wannon and the Leader of the Opposition would not have been able to give their speeches, because they were so broad in their comments. I'll just ask all members to uphold standing orders.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and let me put it in different terms: what would be the motive for someone saying that we should lower our national security principles and let visa applicants know if we're doing a security assessment on them? What would be the motive for that? I can't think of a single motive that's in the national interests of Australia. I can think of a motive that might be in the political day-to-day media-cycle interests of the Leader of the Opposition. But if he's willing to sacrifice the national security interests of Australia to try to get a grab up in social media now, then that's his motive. It's not the government's motive. It's not my motive. You won't find me saying that if we're conducting a national security assessment on someone we ought to do it publicly, that we ought to phone a friend and let them know we're doing it. You won't find this government doing that.

And what sort of motivation has somebody got? I've got to say, if those opposite reckon it's a proper motive, what's the proper motive in this? Is it to publicly disclose all the criteria that ASIO uses? Wow! In what universe does any security agency on the planet publicly disclose all its criteria? In what universe do they do that? Yet the Leader of the Opposition is calling for that to happen now. I must say, I haven't seen his shadow home affairs spokesperson call for something as off the wall as what's being moved in the House right now. I haven't heard his shadow defence spokesperson call for something like that. And we do share confidential briefings with the opposition. We do make sure that that's happened, as they did when we were in opposition. But to share it with the world, to share it on the floor of the House of Representatives, is one of the most irresponsible things—and he knows it. He knows this is the wrong thing to do. Do the security agencies for the United States make their criteria public? Which countries in the world, when they're conducting a security assessment on someone, let them know? With those opposite it's, 'Oh, the Prime Minister this; the Prime Minister that.' But name the countries that do it—because they don't.

The Leader of the Opposition has moved this motion today because the man is irresponsible and a sook, and the country doesn't like either. People have never put up with someone who's a sook, someone who, because they're not on the treasury benches, because at a point in time they're not running the nation, is willing to have the most extraordinary tantrum. We've got used to the tantrums they throw on economic responsibility. We've got used to the fact that they'll throw a tantrum and if they can't be in charge of housing policy they'll try to stop houses from being built. We've got used to the fact that on policy issue after policy issue they'll vote with the Greens because they can't be in charge, that they'll throw their bat and ball in the air and go away.

But I never thought they'd play that game on national security. I never thought they'd play that game on our ASIO systems. I never thought they'd call for what has always been confidential and move a motion of the floor of the parliament saying that all this should be made public. I'm going after what he has put in writing and moved on the floor of this House. Look at the expression on the face of the Leader of the Opposition right now. It shows his attitude to national security. In contrast to that, we've got a government led by a prime minister that will not and has not compromised on national security, that will not and has not attacked our security agencies, a prime minister who has made sure that every step of the way we have kept the thresholds on national security that were already there. Whether we have been in government or opposition, I have never seen something as irresponsible as what is before the House right now. I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that, on the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition, the debate be adjourned.