Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Paterson. The short answer to Senator Paterson's question is yes. And I note that this is not the first time this question has been raised by members of the opposition. In fact, what they are doing is raising questions about a process that is exactly the same under this government as it was under the former government, when Mr Dutton was the home affairs minister. So, it seems that a process that was okay for Mr Dutton in terms of how visas were approved for people overseas is now not good enough to be applied by a Labor government, done in exactly the same way as it was by Mr Dutton.

The fact is that under this government, just as under the former government, all people applying for visas, no matter where they're from, are required to undergo security checks. This has been the case under all governments. But what we're seeing from the opposition is an attempt to whip up fear about Palestinian residents being granted visas, if they are seeking to come here, under the same process that was applied under the former government. All this is showing is that yet again the opposition will use conflict overseas—absolutely devastating conflict, where we have seen tens of thousands of lives lost—to whip up fear and seek to generate conflict in our community, even over a process that is exactly the same as it was when Mr Dutton was the home affairs minister himself.

Figures that have come from the Department of Home Affairs show that when Mr Dutton was the home affairs minister he granted more than 500 visas each week to Syrians fleeing the country in 2015, with a total of more than 12½ thousand visas granted. The former government also approved 5,000 temporary visas for Afghans in just over one month in 2021. The same security agencies performed the same security checks on those visa holders as the checks that have been performed for just 2,273 visas granted to Palestinian residents over 17 weeks. (Time expired)