MARK RILEY: Peter Dutton doubles down in attack on Gaza visa checks

Zali Steggall accused Peter Dutton of racism on Wednesday.

She did it during a news conference in Parliament’s Mural Hall.

Nobody really noticed.

The Independent Member for Warringah did it again on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday morning.

This time, it created outrage.

That included Dutton, who was in the chamber leading a debate on the granting of tourist visas to 3,000 Palestinians fleeing Gaza.

Steggall was forced to withdraw her accusation.

But Dutton is doubling down on his attacks.

He has claimed for weeks that Anthony Albanese and the government are failing to “take the pulse of the nation” on this fraught and divisive issue.

Now, he’s turning up the heat.

Dutton’s claims that the security checks on the Palestinian visa applicants are inadequate are being seen as an attack on the competence and integrity of our leading intelligence organisation, ASIO.

This is an extraordinary thing for an Opposition Leader to do, particularly one who administered ASIO for several years as Minister for Home Affairs.

Labor also claims he fired this broadside without first putting it to his Shadow Cabinet or party room, accusing him of a captain’s call.

But his comments were not entirely new. He went close to calling for a ban on Palestinian arrivals two weeks ago when he said: “You can’t be taking people out of a war zone.”

He also demanded biometric tests be conducted on each applicant so their identities and backgrounds could be checked against intelligence databases.

And while he might not have sought party room support first, it is now clear he has the strong backing of his Coalition colleagues.

Most signed a letter to Immigration Minister Tony Burke demanding he ensure no known supporters of Hamas were being allowed to enter the country.

That stemmed from comments by ASIO boss Mike Burgess in an interview on ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

Burgess said anyone who had participated in or advocated violence by Hamas or provided financial support to the listed terrorist organisation would be ruled out during security checks.

But he said expressing “rhetorical support” for the group would not of itself be sufficient to deny them clearance.

In doing so, Burgess introduced a grey area into what is being framed as a black-and-white debate.

One of his predecessors as Director-General of ASIO, Dennis Richardson, had put similar views earlier this month.

“Because you have sympathy with the terrorist group doesn’t mean to say that you will commit violence against someone,” Richardson said.

But there is little if any room for nuance in the political debate over Gaza.

Dutton lined up Anthony Albanese in the parliament, asking him if supporting Hamas passed Australia’s character test.

Albanese danced around the issue. He said ASIO was applying the same tests as it did when it conducted security checks on refugees coming from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria when Dutton was in government.

But Dutton says that is not true.

He says primary security checks were conducted face-to-face in those cases, sometimes in camps, the Australian Government had helped to establish outside those war zones.

Dutton was criticised at the time because those checks often delayed the visa decisions for weeks if not months.

His contention now is that many of the 3,000 Palestinians who have come here were granted their visas in just hours or days without any one-on-one interview.

All, however, have been checked against ASIO’s watch list, which is updated daily.

The government says 7,110 Palestinian visa applications have been denied, although it is not clear whether that was on security grounds or just the fact that they have been unable to leave Gaza.

Almost all the successful applicants were granted three-month tourist visas and most of that time is almost up.

Burke must soon decide what category of visa they will be moved onto and the process for doing that.

Dutton insists they be assessed for temporary protection visas and undergo the rigorous security tests that entails.

He firmly believes the majority of community opinion is behind him on this.

And, despite what Zali Stegall says, he says it isn’t about race. It’s about national security.