Peter Dutton has insisted he is not racist after independent MP Zali Steggall defended calling the opposition leader so in parliament and accused him of fuelling division with his political attacks over visa-holders from Gaza.
Dutton rejected Steggall’s assertion – which the speaker forced the member for Warringah to withdraw after she levelled it on Thursday – and said she was the one who was divisive.
“I’m not a racist, and I’m not going to be standing here as a punching bag for people like Zali Steggall,” Dutton told Nine’s Today Show on Friday. “I actually think, ironically, that them calling out people unnecessarily and unrealistically and unjustly as racists, they’re actually fuelling tensions.”
But in an interview with the Guardian, Steggall doubled down on criticising the way Dutton had spoken about people from Gaza who have been granted visas – overwhelmingly because they have family in Australia – since the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.
On Friday, Steggall again rejected suggestions that her language had been inflammatory.
“It is not inflammatory to call out behaviour that is divisive,” Steggall told Sky News. “Peter Dutton is dangerous.”
On Friday, government ministers echoed her allegation that Dutton is causing division.
“This is what he’s done all his life – just attack migrants, whether it’s Chinese, Indian, New Zealanders or now the Palestinians,” the education minister, Jason Clare, told Seven’s Sunrise program.
“He’s basically Pauline Hanson without the personality.”
The government services minister, Bill Shorten, said if Dutton has information that any of the 1,300 people who had come to Australia from Gaza since 7 October have posed a security threat, he should provide it.
“Put up or shut up mate,” Shorten told Today. “If one of the 1,300 is a bad person, tell us and we’ll take action.”
Dutton has suggested that all Gaza arrivals since 7 October pose a threat and that no further visas should be issued to anyone from the besieged Palestinian territory.
“I don’t think people should be coming in from that war zone at all at the moment. It’s not prudent to do so and I think it puts our national security at risk,” the opposition leader told Sky News on Wednesday.
He pointed to the process for applicants arriving from Syria and Afghanistan during previous conflicts, in which they were interviewed and subjected to biometric testing in third countries first.
On Sunday, the Asio director general, Mike Burgess, told ABC’s Insiders that biometric testing was only useful if somebody was already in a database.
“If they’re not in a database then the biometric testing gives you nothing other than a biometric tag that you can use at a later stage,” Burgess said. “The critical point is that there are security checks.”
The opposition has accused Anthony Albanese of misleading parliament by partially quoting Burgess to suggest his agency was vetting all Gaza visa applicants.
The shadow foreign minister, Simon Birmingham, supported Dutton’s call for pre-approval testing and interviewing.
“You should be having full screening for all of them given the risk profile … before a visa is issued and before they come to Australia,” Birmingham said.
The government emphasises that Gaza’s borders are effectively closed with visa-holders and applicants currently not able to exit nor travel to Australia, making third-country interviewing impossible at this stage.
Albanese and the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, have said the screening process is the same as under the Coalition government.
That involves an initial vetting of applicant names against a watch list, with anyone red-flagged being referred to Asio for a full security assessment involving consulting with other countries’ security agencies. In the case of Palestinian applicants, that includes Israel. The strict criteria for referring and conducting an assessment is detailed in the Asio Act.
Anyone not triggering an assessment, or who is vetted and passes, is then subjected to a character test through the Department of Home Affairs, where more subjective judgments, based on looser criteria in the Migration Act, can be made about possible risk.
