New visa to give Palestinians permanent home in Australia

Palestinian refugees will be able to call Australia home rather than being forced to return in a major Albanese government move to deal with the Gaza crisis as the opposition hardens its support for Israel and warns of risks posed by refugees.

Senior federal government sources, who asked to remain anonymous as the policy was being finalised, revealed a new special visa pathway would be created for Palestinians in a move set to re-energise the political feud over Labor’s handling of the conflict.

Demonstrators walk through Melbourne’s CBD during a pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne last month.Credit: AAP

It follows months of lobbying by advocates who say those fleeing Gaza have struggled to put food on the table because the temporary visitor visas they were granted prevent them from working or accessing Medicare.

Labor is working on the details of the humanitarian push as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton affirmed the Coalition’s support for Israel in a meeting with its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand to end the war.

Dutton’s trip widened the gulf in attitudes over the war between the Coalition and Labor, which recently called in the Israeli ambassador to warn of the consequences of a war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

The special visa class is due to be one of the first announcements by new Immigration and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.

New Immigration and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.Credit: AAP

Burke, one of the government’s most senior ministers, put his hand up for the politically fraught portfolios after months of opposition attacks on Labor’s response to the High Court decision freeing immigration detainees and the government’s refusal to deport dual-citizen criminals to New Zealand.

Taken together with its warnings on refugees who may sympathise with terrorist groups Hamas in Palestine or Hezbollah in Lebanon, the opposition has sought to paint the Albanese government as more focused on social justice than national security.

Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson claimed this week that Burke might take a softer approach to Palestinian visa claims due to pressure from Muslim groups frustrated with Labor’s level of support for Palestine.

Burke on Tuesday responded: “It’s an idiotic statement and I’ll treat lies with the contempt they deserve.”

The previous Coalition government granted more than 500 visas a week to Syrians fleeing the war-torn country, with more than 12,500 permanent visas granted in total. It also approved 5000 temporary visas for Afghans when the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan and Western troops departed the country in August 2021.

Weeks of talks about the permanent visas took place before Burke was handed the new portfolios in a cabinet shake-up announced on Sunday.

The sources said the new rules would apply to the approximately 1300 Palestinians already in Australia. The Greens are pushing to bring in many more, however, the lobbying of some rights groups has shifted to improving the circumstances of those already in Australia due to the difficulty of getting people out of Gaza.

The Human Rights Law Centre, Refugee Council of Australia and other groups have complained the visitor visa is a bad fit because it requires Palestinians to prove they want to return to Gaza, which is still under attack from Israel. Hundreds of Palestinians in Australia have been applying for protection visas when their three-month visitor visas expire. Ukrainians were also granted visitor visas.

Senator James Paterson.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Palestine Australia Relief and Action Foundation founder Rasha Abbas said Australia had an honourable track record in responding to humanitarian crises.

“Members of this group don’t leave Palestine lightly and would love to go back. But while there is an ongoing war, a genocide really, then we need to do what is right,” she said.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and other agencies are helping dozens of Palestinian families afford food and heating.

The Human Rights Law Centre’s legal director, Sanmati Verma, said forcing Palestinians to seek family-sponsored visitor visas meant they risked becoming undocumented migrants once their visa expired.

“These [more permanent] pathways were created for people fleeing conflict in Ukraine and Afghanistan; they should have been made available to people from Palestine,” she said. “This is a dereliction of duty.”

The Palestine Australia Relief and Action Foundation announced late last week it had received part of a $2.6 million funding boost to help new arrivals. Palestinian support groups have been frustrated in recent months by what they perceive to be Labor’s intent to balance any funding with comparable investment in non-Arab or Jewish groups.

“Anyone who has arrived in Australia from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is not limited to one visa pathway,” a Home Affairs Department spokesman said.

Hamas led a series of attacks on October 7, killing 1200 people in Israel and abducting 250. In its campaign since, Israel has killed more than 39,363 Palestinians and wounded more than 90,900, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

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