Peter Dutton is doubling down on his call for a pause on issuing Australian visas to people from war-torn Gaza until full security checks can be made.
After facing a storm of racism accusations and claims he’s not fit to be prime minister, the Opposition Leader has not retreated one bit and taken his argument into a full Parliamentary debate.
Dismissing the character attacks on him as the usual “political tripe”, Dutton, after a surprise policy announcement on television, has ordered his troops, his argument and his political lines into a strategic assault on Anthony Albanese.
After months of social disruption, pro-Palestinian protests, anti-Semitic acts and visa bungles of gargantuan proportion, Dutton is playing to one of his strengths and using his strongest performers to dominate the public debate.
Dutton told Parliament: “Our country deserves strong leadership and the ability to make tough decisions which are in our country’s best interests. This is not against people of a particular religious belief.
“This is not against people of a particular political persuasion. This is about keeping our country safe.
“Anthony Albanese has failed the Australian public, and he should stand condemned”.
After 24 hours, Dutton and his Home Affairs, Immigration and Foreign Affairs spokesmen, James Paterson, Dan Tehan and Simon Birmingham, have worked out lines and powerful arguments.
The single, simple idea that people from a radicalised war-zone should not be allowed into Australia without proper security checks is difficult to contest. On ABC radio, Paterson put the same proposition he’s been airing for days and the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young was challenged with the reasonableness of the argument.
The secondary argument is that the government is using ASIO as political cover and is not treating people coming from Gaza in the same way people who were fleeing Syria and Afghanistan were treated.
Allowing people to come from Gaza on a tourist visa issued online without a security check is simply not the same as sending people from Syria and Afghanistan to third-party countries for processing and subjecting them to full checks involving biometrics and global data.
Using an ASIO alert list to match names is not the same as checking whether identities are genuine and applying character tests.
As the new Immigration Minister, Tony Burke is handling the latest visa issue far more competently and professionally than his predecessor, but he’s still not answering these key questions.
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