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

Thank you for the question, Senator Sharma. I think it might be your first question in this chamber. The issue that you've asked about is something that I addressed in some media comments this morning as well. The government's practices as to the cancellation of these visas have been on the record. As we have made clear repeatedly, this government is following exactly the same process as the former government in the granting of visas and the consideration of visa applications and has applied exactly the same security tests to those applications as has occurred previously, including under the former government.

Decisions were made to award visas to some applicants, not all, and those decisions were based on information that was available at the time those decisions were made. Further information, in some cases, came to light, and, on the basis of that information, the security advice was that some visas should be cancelled, and that action was taken. Then, as time progressed, additional information came to light which required the reinstitution, if you like, of some of those visas that had been cancelled. That is ordinary practice for any government of any political persuasion—to make visa decisions based on information that is available and that is based on security advice from security agencies. And of course—