Dutton’s ‘captain’s call’ on Palestinian refugees is deplorable

Australia has a long and proud history of assisting people fleeing war and conflict.

The degree and type of assistance we have provided has varied considerably but we have never applied a blanket ban on helping people fleeing war and conflict.

Not until Peter Dutton.

While the precise details of his policy position are sparse – some have described it as a captain’s call made with the pressure of a press microphone in his face – it does sound like he is proposing a blanket ban on entry to Australia of Palestinians fleeing the Gaza conflict.

At times, Dutton has said his ban would apply to “all arrivals from Gaza”. At other times, he seems to have confined this to “refugees” from Gaza. At other times he has expressed concern about people from Gaza being granted visitor or other visas because, allegedly, not all visa applicants are being interviewed face to face.

The Coalition may still be working through the details of the blanket ban and whether there are any exceptions.

History of help

Australians are accustomed to their government assisting people fleeing war and conflict.

When Bob Hawke cried after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Australia helped tens of thousands of students who were afraid of their government.

In 1998, John Howard set up special evacuation flights for people fleeing the war in Kosovo. Those circumstances provided little opportunity for extensive security or other checking and we relied extensively on United Nations agencies.

Howard was at the airport tarmac to personally welcome the evacuees.

In late 1999, Australia helped evacuate hundreds of East Timorese fleeing from the approaching Indonesian forces and eventually led a UN force to assist independence for East Timor.

From around 2002 onwards, we took in thousands of refugees from the conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. These were the Australian citizens and permanent residents Dutton subsequently described as “African gangs” who were scaring Melbournians from going out at night.

When ISIS was rampaging through the Middle-East, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull developed a special allocation of 20,000 places for those fleeing that conflict.

At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Australia assisted Ukrainians fleeing the conflict to rapidly get visitor visas to Australia as well as a special humanitarian category.

Following the Taliban reoccupation of Afghanistan, many Afghans were evacuated using special emergency humanitarian visas and a special allocation of places was added to the humanitarian program for refugees from Afghanistan (mostly in refugee camps in Pakistan).

Following these efforts, there was frequent criticism we did not do enough or move quickly enough. I do not recall a single instance where a major political party leader argued we had been too generous or questioned the checking processes used.

A blanket ban

It is against that background we should consider Dutton’s call for a blanket ban on helping people fleeing the conflict in Gaza.

Dutton’s argument is that because he thinks relevant agencies are incapable of doing the necessary checks to perfection, we should help no one at all. He would know the relevant agencies would be using the same security and identity checking processes they have used in many wars/conflicts in the past, including ones where he was the relevant minister.

Dutton offers no subtlety or nuance. No exceptions whatsoever. The approach the Albanese government has been taking to help Palestinians fleeing the Gaza conflict has been limited compared to past examples such as Ukrainians fleeing the Russia war and Afghans fleeing the Taliban.

No special humanitarian arrangements have, to date, been put in place. There is speculation the government may be considering this. Essentially, Palestinians who are able to escape Gaza have been applying for visitor visas to Australia. The vast majority of those are being refused.

Israelis applying for visitor visas are largely being approved. Peter Dutton has expressed no problems with this and has not questioned whether these people support or don’t support Netanyahu’s invasion of Gaza or comments from his cabinet ministers about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The grounds for refusal of visitor visas to Palestinians fleeing Gaza are most likely to be that a genuine visit is not intended. Some may have been refused on security grounds.

A small number who have strong family links to Australia appear to be getting visas. Unlike with a humanitarian visa, they must then make their own arrangements to travel to Australia.

Many are subsequently applying for asylum.

Essentially, Dutton is saying even this most limited assistance is too much.

That represents an extraordinary precedent. Is Dutton’s blanket ban going to, in future, be Australia’s standard response to helping people fleeing war and conflict?

Or is Dutton’s position an outlier and most Australians still believe their government should assist people fleeing war and conflict?

Dr Abul Rizvi is a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration.

This article first appeared on John Menadue’s public policy website Pearls and Irritations.