Anthony Albanese blinks on Gaza visas issue

Anthony Albanese during question time on Wednesday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

For the first time in two weeks Anthony Albanese has blinked on the question of visas being issued to people from the war-torn, terrorist-governed Gaza region after a week of dogged refusal to concede any political ground or confirm any facts.

In itself the Prime Minister’s concession is not of great moment but politically it is a sign that he can’t refuse to answer every question, his stonewall has a chink and there is now a set of new questions which can be asked.

After three days of refusing to answer consistent questioning on the number of visas being issued for Gazans since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, whether ASIO was checking the tourist visas, why Australia was issuing more visas than our allies and how many visas had been cancelled, Albanese gave ground.

In the end it was only to confirm the number of visa cancellations of the 3000 granted since the Hamas attack and the Israeli campaign in Gaza – 43 cancellations – and it was public knowledge officially released by the government.

But, for the first time in two parliamentary sitting weeks Albanese was forced to answer a question on Gaza visas.

With the patience and all the demeanour of a determined dentist, Peter Dutton has been trying to pull teeth of truth from the government over Gaza and concentrate on Albanese’s leadership and misuse of the words of ASIO boss Mike Burgess last week.

Albanese simply rejected, deflected and rebuffed all the questions, dodging around, producing non sequiturs and attacking the Opposition Leader personally.

But on Wednesday he gave the smallest of concessions, that 43 visas had been cancelled offshore, and biggest of payouts – that the point of the question was not to seek an answer: “Not to get information. It’s to sow doubt, stoke division and create fear.”

No matter how hard Labor tried to deter Dutton the opposition continued its war of attrition and in the end managed a small dent in the defences and set up another day of visa questions and focus on Albanese’s leadership.