The opposition has ratcheted up its criticism of the government’s approach to Palestinians seeking to come to Australia from the Gaza war zone.
On Tuesday, the opposition’s home affairs spokesperson accused the government of being far more generous than other similar countries in the number of Palestinians from Gaza it was letting in.
Speaking to The Australian, Senator James Paterson said the Albanese government had to “urgently explain” its position. He claimed allies including Five Eyes members the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand had taken “a much more cautious approach”, accepting “only a fraction” of Australia’s intake.
The opposition has called on the government to refuse entry to all Palestinians fleeing Gaza, and criticised the level of security checks it says have been applied.
So, what are the facts behind the noise?
How many Palestinians have been allowed into Australia since 7 October?
From 7 October 2023 to 12 August 2024, Australia has granted 2,922 visas to people from the occupied Palestinian territories.
These people are almost all family members of Australians, says Rasha Abbas, director of Palestine Australia Relief and Action (Para), which assists Palestinians resettling in Australia.
Only an estimated 1,300 Palestinians who had been granted these visas had so far been able to make it to Australia.
In recent fact sheet released by Palestine’s de facto embassy in Australia based on 230 recent adult arrivals from Gaza, 73% held a bachelor degree or higher. More than half worked in skilled professions, including as doctors, engineers, lawyers and accounting managers.
What sort of visas are being offered?
Almost all of those who were allowed to come to Australia were granted visitor visas of three, six or 12 months, under which visa holders are not allowed to work, undertake study, access Medicare or other social support.
The rate at which Palestinians applying for visas to Australia were rejected was very high – with 7,111 visa applications rejected during this time.
Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary at the department of immigration, says this high refusal rate is likely because a condition of a visitor visa is that the trip is temporary, and that the government can be confident the person will leave Australia when the visa expires. In light of the current situation in Palestine, Rizvi says, that is “a difficult test to meet”.
How does the number of Palestinians coming to Australia compare with other countries?
The opposition and The Australian newspaper have alleged that Australia is “one of the most generous nations in the developed world in accepting Palestinians from Gaza”, comparing Australia’s 2,922 visitor visa grants with 168 protection visas to Palestinians in the UK, or 17 Palestinian refugees accepted by the US in the same period.
“You’re not really comparing apples and apples,” Rizvi says, pointing out the other countries’ figures largely refer to people who had applied for and been granted asylum, as opposed to Australia’s temporary visitor visa.
Abbas suggests other countries are in fact far more generous with their intake – Canada, for example, extended its cap for family visas for people from Palestine fivefold, to 5,000; countries such as Lebanon and Egypt are now home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
How does the situation compare with people arriving from other war zones?
“Probably the best comparison is what happened out of Ukraine,” Rizvi says. At the start of that conflict the Coalition used visitor visas to get people out quickly.
Once they were here, the government opened up other humanitarian visa pathways to allow Ukrainians to apply to stay, and to access study, work and social supports.
Abbas says it is “not unusual” for either Labor or Coalition governments to use tourist visas during a crisis such as war.“This is not something this government dreamed up,” she says. “This is something that [Australian governments] have done many times before.”
What about the security checks?
The Coalition has repeatedly labelled the government’ssecurity checks on Palestinians fleeing the country as insufficient, saying the speed at which Australian visas were issued meant checks could not be adequately completed. It also criticised the process for not including face-to-face interviews or biometric screening before visas were issued.
Mike Burgess, the director general of the security agency Asio, disputed this earlier in August, telling the ABC’s Insiders: “The critical point is: there are security checks. There are criteria by which people are referred to my service for review and when they are, we deal with that effectively.”
Abbas says “the whole narrative” of people being allowed into Australia unchecked was “false”.
“Everyone who exits Gaza is checked by Israel, your name has to appear on an approved list by Israel for you to exit … Then they have to be approved by Egypt, and Egypt is known to have high security, and then they have to go through the checks in Australia. They actually have been checked by three countries. This whole concept of them being unchecked is so false. Israel would not let anyone who is remotely connected with Hamas exit Gaza.”
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, told parliament on Monday that checks did not cease when a visa was issued. “The government continues to collect information,” he said. “We never stop collecting information on this caseload or anyone who has visas. If at any point in time we’re presented with information that [gave] grounds for visa cancellation, we would cancel the visa.”
How does what the Coalition says now stack up with what it did in office?
The prime minister noted in parliament on Monday thatthe Coalition’s recent outrage over Palestinian visas stood at odds with its behaviour while in office.
Anthony Albanese said the Coalition government – during a time when Hamas controlled the Gaza Strip – “issued more than 1,000 visitor visas to Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories”. He also noted that in the financial year during which the Ukraine conflict began, the previous government issued 10,000 visitor visas to Ukrainians.
