Set high bar on visa applications

Legitimate concerns about visas potentially being granted to Hamas supporters to enter Australia deserve better than snide dismissal by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. A blanket ban on visas for all travellers from Gaza demanded by Peter Dutton could go too far. Provided a high bar is set for entry qualifications, there should be no reason to exclude Gazans who meet visa requirements and are not Hamas terrorist sympathisers. Applicants who cannot establish their bona fides, however, should miss out.

The Opposition Leader and more than 70 Coalition and crossbench MPs who wrote to Mr Burke on Tuesday expressing “grave concern” about visas possibly being granted to Hamas sympathisers were right to do so. They were worried about ASIO director-general Mike Burgess’s statement on Sunday when he said “rhetorical support” for Hamas, a terrorist organisation responsible for grotesque mass murder, would not automatically disqualify Palestinians from obtaining visas. Led by Jewish Liberal MP Julian Leeser, the signatories were concerned “this statement of government policy signals a relaxed approach to the safety of Australians. We implore you to provide the policy direction to the Department of Home Affairs to ensure that no visa is issued to a person found to support any terrorist organisation, including Hamas, and that those who are presently in Australia and who are known to have links to, or support for, Hamas are urgently considered for visa cancellation.”

Mr Burke should have provided that assurance. But, probably with an eye to pro-Palestinian sentiment in his western Sydney seat, he said security assessments for visas were “properly made by ASIO experts and not junior Liberal Party shadow ministers”. That was little better than Anthony Albanese’s comment when he said of Mr Dutton: “This bloke always seeks to divide … we take our advice from the director-general of ASIO and the security agencies, not from someone always looking for a fight, always looking for division.”

Since October 7 last year the Department of Home Affairs has rejected more than 7100 visa applications from Palestinians and granted 2992 visas to holders of Palestinian travel documents, of which only 1500 have journeyed to Australia. The rejection rate suggests reassuring thoroughness by officials. But Mr Burgess’s statement raised important questions. No form of backing for Hamas has any place in our society, which is deeply riven over the Palestinian issue and the gross anti-Semitism it has bred. Ultra-vigilance is needed to keep Hamas out.