Gazan Visa Scheme Is a Sure Sign Of Desperation

Be thankful you don’t have to watch parliament for a living like I do, because the past week has been a shocker. We’ve got a weak Prime Minister who’s getting more and more desperate to hold onto power despite the real sense it’s slipping away from him. We’ve got ministers who are failing to get the basics right, like health minister Mark Butler who has allowed Australia to run critically low in essential IV fluids needed by our hospitals. And you’ve got those well-heeled Teals claiming misogyny because they don’t like the tone of political debate but at the same time, using slurs like “racist” against Peter Dutton.

What the Left don’t understand (and I include the Teals here as they are Gucci-Greens, not pseudo-Liberals) is that calling the Opposition Leader a “racist” because he wants security checks on people coming to live in Australia brands every one of us a racist. Nearly every Australian has a migrant background of one sort or another. Migrants who’ve come the right way know just how rigorous the requirements were: the documents, the checks, the time taken before they got their visa. So, when they learn that Anthony Albanese has granted 3000 tourist visas to people out of a terrorist-controlled war zone, they want assurances they were properly checked. Imagine their concern when they learn that these online applications were approved in as little as one hour, without a face-face-interview and that once here, Gazans are already applying for permanent refugee status and all the taxpayer support that comes with it?

What’s more, the Albanese Government never actually told us they were doing this. Australians only found out by accident when the story leaked out in the Muslim community. There was no official announcement, no transparency and no special visa class created, as done in the past, to properly vet any new arrivals.

What troubles me the most is the statement by ASIO chief, Mike Burgess, that “sympathy with Hamas” is not a deal-breaker when deciding the fate of these Gazans. Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation. That’s done under special legislation against a whole set of criteria that confirms it is the worst of the worst when it comes to the harm Hamas wants to do to countries like Australia. In the past, we used to deport people that were sympathetic to al-Qaeda and Islamic State (both also listed terrorist organisations), so what’s changed? Was Burgess freelancing here or was he reflecting new government policy? Worryingly, when asked twice in parliament last week: “Does supporting Hamas pass the character test for an Australian visa?”, the Prime Minister completely evaded the question.

Can you imagine John Howard dodging a straight forward question like this? Instead of answering it, Albanese accused Dutton of being “divisive” and “negative”, but this is a big deal. Why is the Prime Minister and his government so reluctant to say that support for Hamas has no place in this country?

So, the question that must be asked, why is Albanese doing this?

Because Labor is under huge electoral pressure. In every major poll over the past eight months, they are behind and at best, headed for minority government. They are facing a backlash in outer urban seats where cost of living is biting hard. The Greens have used the pro-Palestinian issue to drag young voters away from Labor and in a raft of seats in Western Sydney and Melbourne, Labor incumbents are vulnerable to a new pro-Muslim vote movement.

I don’t think they thought it would go like this. I know how the inside of government works, and I think this was something cooked up quickly last year by Albanese and then Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to trade visas-for-votes amongst the pro-Palestinian crowd. I think they thought they were being clever and used the backdoor (and fast) route of tourist visas without getting advice from our security agencies (remember at the time, the PM had thrown ASIO off his National Security Committee) or even the immigration department, as a former senior immigration official said last week. I doubt it even went to cabinet, there was no caucus debate, and certainly no public announcement and it’s now all blown up in the government’s face.

As it should.

No one can call himself a leader and put at risk Australia’s national security. But that’s exactly what Albanese has done here. Hamas is deeply anti-Semitic; it also hates the West and thinks all westerners are evil. It exalts in depravity, slaughters women and children in ways I can’t even describe in print, and it won’t rest until it destroys Israel, or Israel destroys Hamas.

Not every Gazan is a supporter of Hamas but reputable polls say that the vast majority supported what Hamas did on October 7. It’s also an undeniable fact that Gazans elected Hamas as their government.

This is why asking legitimate questions about why we are now letting these Gazans into Australia without proper security checks isn’t racist at all. And anyone trying to claim it is, has something to hide.