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

I'm not going to participate in the latest attempt of the opposition to try to whip up political fear and fear in the community around this issue. We know that the opposition—and Senator Paterson is one of the worst offenders in this—are determined to whip up fear in the Australian community. They have no regard whatsoever for social cohesion in this country. I'm not going to participate in that and I'm not going to fuel it by participating in these kinds of games from the opposition when we have said, and Mr Burgess at ASIO has said, that the Australian community's safety will be the most central issue that we consider when considering all of these matters. As we have said and as Mr Burgess has said, if a person supports an extremist ideology, their visa will be rejected or cancelled. Anyone who espouses violent extremist ideology while in Australia will have their visa cancelled by the minister. Our government will also use character grounds to cancel the visa of anyone we believe is a threat to our country, and that's the way that it should be.