August 21, 2024
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The debacle about these visas that have been issued to Gazans fleeing the war zone, currently taking place in the Gaza Strip. Continued in Parliament yesterday. I got to say it was a disgraceful performance from the government. But look, it raises more questions that are answers. To talk to us more about this, Senator James Paterson is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister and he joins us now. James, good morning.
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning. Stephen.
CENATIEMPO: I want to go back to basics for a moment. So what we're being told here is that these Gazans or Palestinians, whatever, however, you want to describe them, have been issued with visitors visas. That's the kind of visa that somebody's coming to Australia on a holiday would have, isn't it?
PATERSON: Correct, If you want to come and see the Opera House or visit Uluru or maybe just visit a family member for a significant occasion, you apply for a tourist visa. They are generally 3, 6, or 12 months in duration, and a condition of applying for the visa is that you say that you intend to return to the country from where you've come.
CENATIEMPO: Now, the concern that you have is that there's no intention of for these people to actually return?
PATERSON: Well, of course not. And the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, has publicly said there's no possibility of these people returning. So why were they granted a tourist visa in the first place, then? Why were they allowed to come to Australia on the basis that they did intend to return, if the intention was for them always to remain? And the problem here is that the security checks for a tourist visa are necessarily much less exacting than the security checks, for example, for a refugee visa, which are obviously much higher given that someone might be able to stay here permanently.
CENATIEMPO: So a lot of the visas that have actually been granted, my understanding is the people haven't actually arrived in Australia, but we've already cancelled a number of them, before these people have actually arrived, from what I understand?
PATERSON: So 2,992 visas have been granted. About half of those, up to 1,500, have made their way into Australia, and the rest have not yet come to Australia. And you're right, 43 of them were cancelled. But of those 43 being cancelled, 20 of them were overturned on appeal. The government is not saying what the grounds were for those cancellations, but a spokesman for the former Minister for Home Affairs implied that security was one of the considerations.
CENATIEMPO: Now Ed Husic last week, well earlier this week, said the quite a bit out loud the reason the government's opted to go down this, train is because it allowed them to get these people into the country quicker. That smacks of a political reason rather than an actual humanitarian reason.
PATERSON: Exactly. I think he accidentally said the truth, which is a definition of a politician doing a gaffe, accidentally saying the truth. Because what it revealed is the unique approach that Australia has taken compared to our allies and partners. We've taken in more people from Gaza than the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Spain, Italy, Ireland, many, many, many others. We're globally unique in doing it. In some instances, we've taken ten times as many Gazans as those countries have.
CENATIEMPO: Now, yesterday, the Prime Minister wouldn't answer any basic questions on this and certainly wouldn't give a straight answer. Do we have any indication as to why we feel that we need to lead the world on this?
PATERSON: No, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, have offered no explanation whatsoever as to why it's in Australia's national interest to take so many more than any other country in the world. You know, the United States, for example, has taken 17. Why do we think that it's in Australia's national interest to take so many? Why are we playing such a leading role, particularly when some of the leading supporters of Palestine at the United Nations and other places like Spain have taken to zero, like Ireland, have only taken 71.
CENATIEMPO: I want to talk about the cost in a moment, because I know that that's a particular focus for you. But the argument from the government and I spoke to Andrew Lee on this program yesterday, and they say no, well the rules around visas and the and the security checks are exactly the same as they were, when the Coalition was in government and they rattled off a whole bunch of numbers of, refugees that came into Australia under the previous government. That can't possibly be true. I mean, we didn't bring people in on visitor's visas if they were coming for humanitarian purposes. Did we?
PATERSON: No, the government is misleading the public when they say that. It was a very different approach under the former government, for example, in the evacuation of both Syria and Afghanistan, people were not granted tourist visas to come to our country. They were granted refugee visas. And to do so, they were often taken to third countries where they could be interviewed in person by Australian government officials, where biometric tests could be taken. In the case of the Gaza visas. No one has been interviewed. No biometrics have been taken. They've been granted these visas online in an average time of 24 hours, but in some cases as quick as one hour. So it's a completely different approach under this government.
CENATIEMPO: Extraordinary. And what's it all going to cost us?
PATERSON: Well, that's the sting in the tail for Australians in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Our calculations shows the average cost of someone on a refugee visa in Australia is $25,000 a year. So if all 3000 are granted them and they stay here for three years, that's over $300 million that Australian taxpayers will have to pay in things like Medicare and welfare and other benefits.
CENATIEMPO: And will they have to transfer to another visa class?
PATERSON: Well some we believe are already transferring to bridging visas in the meantime as their tourist visas expire. But they're not being deported for obvious reasons, and the government is soon about to announce some kind of permanent visa for them that allows them to stay and allows them to access all those services and benefits. But they're not being transparent with the public about what that's going to look like.
CENATIEMPO: Extraordinary. James, thanks for your time this morning.
PATERSON: Thank you.
ENDS
