September 3, 2024
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KIERAN GILBERT: Let's turn now to the story around Mike Burgess, the ASIO boss in the issue of visas to Palestinian refugees. Joining me is the Shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Paterson. First of all, James Paterson, your reaction to this clarification from Mike Burgess? What do you make of it?
JAMES PATERSON: Well, personally, Kieran, I'm not surprised. Those are the views that I assumed Mike Burgess held. I've done probably 25 media interviews on this issue, and not a single one of them have I ever criticised Mike Burgess or ASIO. Because I didn't think that he thought it was a good idea to bring Hamas supporters into our country. My criticism and the opposition's criticism has always been focussed on the government, and frankly, that criticism is even more acute today because what Mike Burgess has now said is that bringing Hamas supporters into our country is not a good idea, because they are a threat to our national security. So why is it in almost a month of this debate that no government minister has been able to bring themselves to make this simple statement of fact? What is it that is stopping them putting the national interest and our national security first and saying what Mike Burgess has now said?
GILBERT: Is it a little too late from Mike Burgess, though, to clarify the comment? Should he have done it immediately? Because when you say rhetorical support on the one hand would not preclude a visa for someone coming out of Gaza. But now liking a tweet in support of Hamas would.
PATERSON: Well, Kieran, this is always much more, frankly, about the character provisions of the Migration Act, which are not administered by ASIO, than it ever was about security assessments. We know only a minority of these Gaza visa applicants are being referred to ASIO for assessment. The vast bulk are just being considered by the Department of Home Affairs. And it's up to the government to say, which the Prime Minister has been unable to do, that supporting a terrorist organisation violates the character provisions of the Migration Act, and we will not grant you a visa if you support Hamas. And if you've come to our country and you express support from Hamas, we will cancel your visa and we will deported you from the country under the character provisions of the Migration Act. Now, none of that is a matter for Mike Burgess. None of that is a matter for ASIO. They don't administer that act. The government does, and they are responsible for coming out and clarifying that position.
GILBERT: Given Mike Burgess has said this though, does it reassure you that this is the way the agency, the security agencies look at this matter, look at this area, and look at the individuals that are allowed to come here?
PATERSON: I've never had any doubt about ASIO or Mike Burgess that they would always do their job. But as Mike Burgess himself said on that Insiders interview, they only can do their job when criteria is met and cases are referred to them. And the Prime Minister has misled the parliament and the public by implying that all of the cases are referred to ASIO when we know only a tiny minority is. This has always been a question of whether the Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs are willing to put the national interests before their political interests. And they've been tested on this repeatedly and have failed that test. I mean, why couldn't they have said clearly in question time when asked repeatedly, we're not going to bring terrorism supporters into our country? That's such a simple thing that any Australian government, left or right, Labor or Liberal, should have been able to commit to.
GILBERT: But just on Mike Burgess and I know you don't want to criticise him, but he's saying his original comments were distorted. It seems to me a rewriting of what he said though now when he says if you like a tweet, it has to be described as rhetorical support at best to do that and you would struggle to get a visa essentially is what he's saying now. It's different to what he said initially a few weeks ago?
PATERSON: Kieran, you'll understand why I don't want to publicly parse the comments of the ASIO Director-General. I strongly support Mike Burgess. I think he does an outstanding job. I support his entire team. I support ASIO, it's a wonderful organisation that does very important work in the national interest and for our national security. And it's not in our country's interest for them to be politicised. And that's why I am very disappointed that the Prime Minister tried to use Mike Burgess as a political shield. He tried to hide behind ASIO. He should have just been up front and taken responsibility from the very beginning.
GILBERT: On the comments made by your colleague Andrew Wallace, the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security. On the programme earlier, he said he wouldn't be surprised if a number of the cohort already in Australia on visas, on tourist visas, will end up in immigration detention. Do you share that view?
PATERSON: I think that is a risk for two reasons. One is because the government has improperly granted them tourism visas. Now, the conditions of accepting a tourism visa, applying for a tourist visa is that you only intend to visit and stay temporarily, and you intend to return. Well, Tony Burke and others in the government have already said none of these people are going back, therefore, effectively they have violated the provisions of the visa that they are on, and normally there would be consequences for that. It's up to the government whether they're going to enforce the provisions of the tourism visas. The second issue is what are we going to do if we do identify anyone who is a security risk now that they are here, or if they violate the character provisions and their visas need to be cancelled? Well in the normal course of events, they would be taken to immigration detention pending deportation. But there is a live question about whether or not they can be deported at all, given Tony Burke and others are saying that can't go back. And all of this comes back to the original sin of the government in this issue, which is tourism visas were never the appropriate visa to grant these people. They should have been taken to a third country where they could be removed from danger, but assessed carefully, as we did in Syria and Afghanistan, for their security and identity, and also whether they met the criteria for refugee humanitarian protection. Bringing them onshore means they are now a very difficult cohort to deal with.
GILBERT: Do you think, given the number of those that have been allowed into Australia, the size of that cohort, that it's likely there will be security risks among that group?
PATERSON: I'm worried, both because of the size and because of the rush in granting these visas, that that could happen. I mean, when you spend an average of 24 hours and in some instances as quickly as one hour granting a tourist visa to someone fleeing a war zone controlled by a terrorist organisation, that increases the risk that mistakes are made and that people who slip through who we would never intend to bring into our country. And this all comes back to the rushed, risky, and reckless approach the government has taken from the beginning on this issue.
GILBERT: So from the get go, if you were the minister, what would have happened? How would you have done it? How would you have responded to the pressure to provide some humanitarian support?
PATERSON: Well, I think that the case study is there in history and that is the Syria cohort and Afghanistan cohort. I mean, in the case of Syria, the National Security Committee of Cabinet met many times and deliberated over this very carefully. And when they reached a landing point, the Prime Minister, then Tony Abbott, was able to stand up and say, this is how many people we're going to bring in, about 12,000. This is the cohorts that we're targeting, persecuted minorities. And this is the process that we're going to have for assessing them, for security, identity, and the validity of their claim for refugee and humanitarian status. And they put in place a process that took about a year to resolve. And they were criticised at the time for not doing it more quickly. All of that was available to the government in this case. And for whatever reason, in their wisdom, they decided not to ever announce how they were going to do this, not to ever put a number on the people they intended to bring in, and not to clearly state what the process was for assessing them. And it either was because no decision was ever made or because they just made it up as they went along.
GILBERT: James Paterson, appreciate your time and thanks so much for that. We will talk to you soon.
PATERSON: Thanks, Kieran
ENDS
