Every visa sent to ASIO: Home Affairs advice challenges Dutton claim
All Palestinians who received Australian visas have been referred to ASIO, according to confidential advice to the immigration minister, in revelations that challenge the Coalition’s claim that people fleeing Gaza were not vetted by security agencies.
Home Affairs documents also reveal that Palestinians leaving Gaza went through eight stages of identity verification, including checks from two federal departments as well as face-to-document verification at the Rafah border, boarding the plane and upon arrival in Australia.
The revelations, tabled in the Senate on Friday following a request by Coalition Senator James Paterson, come after the opposition waged a fierce political fight asserting the government had not conducted full identity and security checks on Palestinian refugees as it called to stop migration from Gaza.
In August, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton seized on comments made by ASIO director-general Mike Burgess to cast doubt on the process and accuse the government of putting Australians’ safety at risk, kicking off weeks of dogged questioning in parliament and the media.
“Mike Burgess made the extraordinary admission that not all visa applications are coming before ASIO for security checks,” Dutton said in August.
“[The Labor government] does not have the policies and processes in place to ensure that every visa application that is made by anyone coming from a troubled hotspot such as Gaza, are subject to appropriate security checks before entering Australia.”
Burgess, who has repeatedly warned politicians against using inflamed rhetoric, later took issue with people distorting his words and clarified: “ASIO takes a comprehensive and in-depth approach to its security checks”.
The newly released Home Affairs brief for ministers, dated March this year, outlines “ongoing actions the department is taking to mitigate risk that previously unknown adverse information about a Palestinian visa holder will emerge” and extra steps it was taking to screen Palestinians on visitor visas.
It confirms the department had given ASIO a list of “Palestinian visa holders of all ages, regardless of location, holding any subclass [of visa]”.
Government sources confirmed the same process has applied to all visa holders since March, meaning everyone granted a visa had been referred to ASIO. As of April 9, the documents show there had been 13 visas cancelled on security grounds and 24 cancelled over non-genuine criteria. Government sources said all visa cancellations were offshore.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton trade barbs during a recent question time.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The advice to the minister also said the department was conducting daily checks on visa holders’ status on the Central Movement Alert List – a database that stores biographic details of people and travel documents of concern to Australia – “in addition to the usual checks before visa grant”.
Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan doubled down on Friday, saying: “This is further proof that this whole process has been a complete and utter mess. It is now crystal clear that proper security checks were not put in place because the process was rushed.”
Labor has sought to avoid the debate, other than to state it had faith in official processes as it was repeatedly hammered by Coalition MPs in question time. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to detail how intelligence agencies did their job for security reasons.
Regarding identity checks, the advice said a Palestinian seeking to depart Gaza would have their identity checked by Home Affairs during the visa process, and then confirmed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which also checked their family groupings.
They would have face-to-document checks at the Rafah border crossing, by the airline upon boarding a flight and by Australian Border Force officials on arrival.
“ Visa officers rarely rely on a single document or piece of information to be satisfied of identity,” the advice said.
“Many Palestinians will hold a biometric ID card in addition to the usual ID card ... The document examination unit of the department has no recorded cases of fraudulent or counterfeit Palestinian travel documents.”
Paterson previously argued Palestinian visas were rushed, claiming the government “weren’t able to provide assurances about security and identity checks”.
“In Gaza, these visas have been granted with no Australian government presence on the ground, no face-to-face interviews, no biometric testing and in some cases, as quickly as 24 hours or even one hour,” he said in August.
Paterson’s office declined to comment to this masthead on Friday. The documents do not directly respond to his stated concerns about a lack of face-to-face interviews or biometric testing, but they outline a process for identity and security checks.
The advice noted that Palestinian visa applicants “generally have a connection to Australia” and that the department weighed heavily a person’s immediate or close family connections – which encompassed children, parents, partners and siblings – when considering the visas, of which 2935 were granted and 7150 refused as of August 19.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.