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

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Daily Telegraph has this morning reported that the Albanese government granted a visa to Fayez Elhasani, an individual proudly and openly linked to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—both listed terrorist organisations in this country—and that Elhasani is now living in Australia. Prime Minister, has the visa for this individual been cancelled?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The process for all visas for people who have come from Palestine has been exactly the same for every one of them. They all come into the same process, and the engagement with the security agencies has been the same the whole way through. And I have to say, if it's a choice about who I'll take advice from between the shadow minister who asked the question or the director-general of ASIO, I'm sorry, but I'm going to listen to the director-general of ASIO.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The leader will pause. Members on my right are going to cease interjecting—the member for Spence is now warned—so I can hear the point of order from the member for Wannon.

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

It's on relevance, Speaker. The question was a very direct one. Has the visa of this individual been cancelled?

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

I can appreciate the member would like—

Order! The member for Wannon will not interject.

The member for Gippsland is not helping things. The minister was asked a question. He needs to remain directly relevant. He has been talking about ASIO. I'm going to listen carefully to make sure he is being directly relevant.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The process that they go through is this. Every single applicant is first of all checked against the Movement Alert List. The Movement Alert List is updated every 24 hours, involving ASIO's information. Then, if additional flags are raised at any point, separate referrals happen to ASIO. Then, people who were getting out of that part of the world had to go through a border that was controlled by both Egypt and Israel with the relevant checks that would happen at that point as well. In addition to that, it is now public that there was a further check that was made in March of every single visa holder within this case load either onshore or offshore. All of those checks have been made.

If at any point our security agencies gave advice to the government that a visa should be cancelled, then the government of course would take that advice seriously. But the concept that we should abandon our security agencies and defer instead to Google searches from the opposition is not something this government will do.