Speaker rules against ‘imputations’ in questions as Dutton attempts to corner PM over Gaza visasPeter Dutton gets up to take a question and there is the sound of “ooohhhhhhhhh” from the Labor benches.Dutton seems ready to be moving a suspension of standing orders here.
Over the last two weeks, the prime minister has dodged about 30 questions on the government’s handling of people coming from terrorist-controlled Gaza since October 7. It’s now clear that by cutting corners and concocting the visas-for-votes scheme, this government has put domestic political considerations ahead of national security and Australians are now less safe.
Tony Burke jumps up to ask about imputations in the question. There is no evidence that corners were cut, and there has been no event or incident which has led to these questions – this started last week when Peter Dutton answered a question put to him by a Sky News journalist as they waited for the Australian Olympic team to return from Paris.Dutton said he didn’t think anyone from Gaza should be coming to Australia. No one is – the border has been shut since May. This turned into the opposition claiming that not enough security checks have been carried out. The head of Asio, Mike Burgess, said in an interview on Insiders on Sunday, that security checks were done as usual.There has been no suggestion that “corners have been cut” other than the opposition presenting it as fact. The opposition also started to present as fact that visas were approved “in an average of 24 hours” which again, there is no evidence for.Milton Dick rules against imputations.Dutton asks again:
Over the last two weeks the prime minister has dodged almost 30 questions on the government’s handling of people coming from terrorist-controlled Gaza since October 7. It is now clear that by cutting corners this government has put domestic political considerations ahead of national security and Australians are now less safe. With the prime minister apologise for breaking his promise before the election to keep Australians safe?
ShareUpdated at 07.06 CESTKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureWhat did we learn in question time?Amy RemeikisEvery question from the opposition was again on security arrangements for Palestinian visas, in a rehash of every QT from this week.But after questions on how many visas Qatar has issued to Palestinians (a December report said 3,000 places in Qatar would be made available) and Abul Rizvi debunking the Coalition’s interpretation of his interview with the Australian newspaper before QT began, there was not much left in the pot.Not a single question was asked about whether the government had received advice from its department to issue humanitarian visas, which is what the opposition was lining up in its attacks this morning.Paul Fletcher, who is chief wrangler of the opposition in the House, was also seen dropping off sheets of papers to backbenchers who asked questions (actual paper is how new instructions or questions are usually delivered – they don’t do it in text messages).Anthony Albanese stuck to his strategy of not engaging in the back-and-forth by sitting down whenever a point of order was raised and the government kept every dixer on what it is was doing either on policy or cost of living relief.That culminated with Albanese delivering his own dixer answer designed to get the Labor troops “hear, hearing” and present a positive, uplifted “team” (the Coalition’s Nola Marino could be seen pretending to conduct the “hear, hears” as if in front of an choir)And Peter Dutton stayed fairly quiet. He had just the one question, which was cut off over a debate over imputations in questions and then reworded.That is the last QT until 9 September when parliament returns. Enjoy that break.ShareUpdated at 07.53 CESTAmy RemeikisWhat did the speaker rule on imputations?One of the interesting parts of that QT (which is a rare sentence to write) was Milton Dick’s ruling on imputations.The speaker said he had “spent a bit of time overnight dealing with imputations in questions” because it has been raised so frequently lately. He used practice (which sets the precedents that speakers use in dealing with disputes) and went back to the 2000s and Speaker Neil Andrew.Andrew outlined “improper motives” in questions and those not allowed, “particularly with personal motives, regardless of where it’s directed to”.He then went to Speaker Tony Smith, who made rulings in a similar space in 2021 and 2018. Smith said he was “certainly not comfortable with a language that just makes assertions as it did, I’m really not, and those on my left, who within the opposition, would not be comfortable if that sort of language was directed back at them”.And then he quoted himself from 14 February when he asked a Greens MP to “redirect and rephrase the question” and another occasion when he asked Kate Chaney to also change her question.So for “consistency” Dick said he would be ruling those parts of the questions (imputations) out.ShareUpdated at 07.48 CESTQuestion time endsAs Anthony Albanese lists off all the “numbers” he says the government is proud of, the shadow energy minister, Ted O’Brien, almost gives himself a hernia yelling “You forgot the $275!!!! You forgot the $275!!!!!!”Question time ends.(The $275 is in reference to the average the government said people would be saving on their energy bills by 2025.)ShareUpdated at 07.32 CESTAnthony Albanese takes a dixer so he can end question time on a rallying “rah-rah” on what he says Labor has done in the term.I think we are safe to say that at the end of this answer, the final question time of the sitting will be done.ShareUpdated at 07.24 CESTJulian Leeser is back:
Prime Minister, does supporting Hamas pass the character test for an Australian visa?
Anthony Albanese:
Everyone who applies for an Australian visa is subject to the same security standard set by the same agencies and the same personnel as under the former government, and our intelligence agencies make those decisions.
Our intelligence agencies have the confidence of this side of the House, this side of the House, and so does Mike Burgess, who has made it very clear that if you have violent extremism as an ideology, then you certainly have a problem with an Asio assessment.
Asio makes these national security assessments. They’re not made on a partisan basis or a political basis.
Asio do this work and they do it as well on an ongoing basis on an ongoing basis, which is relevant to previous questions that have been asked over the last couple of weeks.
And national security is too important to be used as a political football.
Our national security is something that historically in this place, in this place has been above the sort of game playing and targeting that we’ve seen here.
The targeting of any group based upon hate is a bad thing, whether that’s people of Jewish faith, people of Islamic faith, people of whatever colour or creed. It is a bad thing. And we see the consequences of hate in too many places of the world at the moment. What I want to do in this great multicultural nation is provide …
Dan Tehan goes to raise a point of order and a visibly annoyed Albanese ends his answer.ShareUpdated at 07.23 CESTJulian Leeser asks PM whether supporting Hamas passes the character test for Australian visaJulian Leeser asks Anthony Albanese:
Prime Minister, on October 7, Hamas terrorists went into small Israeli farming villages and a music festival where they filmed themselves gleefully murdering children, raping women and mutilating their victims, including after death.
1,300 innocent people were gunned down and murdered for sport, and 251 hostages were forced at gunpoint into Hamas terror tunnels under Gaza. On return, thousands of people were dancing in the streets in celebration. Prime minister, does supporting Hamas pass the character test for an Australian visa?
Albanese:
I thank the member for Berowra for his question, and I know that he, as a proud Jewish Australian, was hurt, as are other members of the Jewish community right around not just Australia, but around the world by the events, the horrific events of October 7.
They shocked also, I think, anyone with any human values at all.
One of the things that I’ve said to people here who I think have been in any way equivocal, unlike the government that has been unequivocal and as has the opposition in their condemnation of what happened in October 7, is that the people who were there at the Nova music festival looked like a whole lot of people who would attend a Splendour in the Grass concert, would attend the sort of events that happen here in Australia where young people celebrate their common humanity, where they engage in fun and where they also tend to be people who are open to ideas and open to collaboration across people of different faiths, etc and one of the things that some of the, Jewish community leaders have said to me in the wake of October 7 is that they are precisely the sort of people who want to see peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians, as well.
They were very close to where the border was. And to have them subjected to the horrific murder, rape and abuse that occurred, the kidnapping of people, is horrific, if it occurred to any human being.
But of course, because of one of the reasons why the world came together in the wake of world war two in the wake of the Holocaust …
(There is a point of order at this part of the question and Albanese sits down, completing his answer.)ShareUpdated at 07.23 CESTRebekha Sharkie asks Mark Butler:
According to the National Rural Health Alliance, regional Australians receive $848 less per year in health spend than metropolitan Australians. How will the government urgently address this alarming health care spending inequity?
Butler (the bit that counts):
We’re currently undertaking [a review] about the distribution rules to ensure that all areas have access to doctors, but other health professionals as well.
ShareUpdated at 07.20 CEST‘We want to see an advance in peace and security between Israelis and Palestinians’: PMThe LNP MP Pat Conaghan asks Anthony Albanese:
When the Rafah border crossing reopens, will the thousands of people holding a tourist visa to travel to Australia be eligible to travel immediately?
Visa approvals expire and lapse. That is normal.Anthony Albanese:
I’m asked about the reopening of the Rafah border crossing by the member for Cowper and he may have information that I don’t have, and that’s possible, Mr Speaker. That is possible.
But I think it’s unlikely, Mr Speaker. I think it’s unlikely. But what I do want to see are borders which are able to be opened because there is a release of hostages from Gaza currently being kept by Hamas. Because there is an end to the death and destruction that we see against too many innocent civilians in Gaza on our TV screens every night.
Because we see want to see an advance in peace and security between Israelis and Palestinians. Because we see in the region, a recognition by Arab states of the state of Israel and the right for it to continue to exist with insecure borders, but also the right of Palestinians, the legitimate aspiration that they have, to live in peace and security behind their borders.
That’s what I hope for. That is something that has been longstanding bipartisan policy in the Australian parliament for a long period of time.
And Australia has a proud history going back to our role in the United Nations, with, importantly, the creation of not one state, but the creation of two states, which was the vision of the United Nations in which Australia played an important leadership role. I believe that Australians, when they look at what is happening in that part of the world are horrified. But particularly for people of Jewish background or descent or faith, people of Islamic background or people with relatives in that region, want to see this happen. And what they don’t want also is conflict because [of that] here.
They want Australia to play a constructive role.
They object to some of the misinformation which is out there about Australia’s role in that conflict which is we are not participants, but we are people who, consistent with the role Australia has historically played, advocates for peace and security and for humanitarian values and for the protection of all innocent life, whether it be Israeli or Palestinian.
ShareUpdated at 07.12 CESTKaren MiddletonIn the Senate, the subject has shifted from agriculture and mining to whaling, with the Greens’ Peter Whish-Wilson asking what the government thinks about Japan slaughtering endangered fin whales for the first time in more than 50 years.Jenny McAllister, representing the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, reiterates that the government is “deeply disappointed” in Japan’s decision to expand its commercial whaling program.McAllister says that as of a month ago, Australia had made “strong representations” to Japan eight times about the decision:
We are opposed to all forms of commercial whaling.
She confirms the foreign minister, Penny Wong, had pressed this with the Japanese government on multiple occasions. She says that in June, Australia led a “united representation” with the European Union, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States to express its disappointment to Japan directly.McAllister says Australia will continue to play “an active and vocal role” in failing of the international moratorium on whaling.ShareUpdated at 07.26 CESTDaniel HurstWhat has Asio said about whether home affairs has ‘cut corners’ on visa processing?In parliament, Peter Dutton has repeated the claim that the government was “cutting corners” on security checks, so let’s once again see what Asio said about this.In March, Guardian Australia asked the Asio boss, Mike Burgess, for a response to Coalition concerns that Asio or the Department of Home Affairs might have been under pressure to “to cut corners, or do this more quickly than they already would”.Burgess said Asio had a role in the visa process but he would not explain the precise arrangements “because we don’t want people to game that process”. Burgess explicitly said his organisation was not being put under political pressure and “I’m confident the process is where it needs to be”.ShareUpdated at 06.52 CESTAnthony Albanese continues raising Abul Rizvi’s comments.
[Rizvi] had this to say … Talking about the leader of the opposition: ‘The guy who allowed the biggest labour trafficking scam in Australian history and at the same time made massive cuts to immigration compliance funding. A labour trafficker’s dream.’
And indeed today he has gone on to say [to] shadow minister Senator [James] Paterson: ‘If you read the whole article, I actually said the national security dimension of this is a beat up. The checks these people go through [are] extensive so to suggest that as a national security risk here is a complete beat up. There is no evidence that the government recklessly concluded …’
Albanese runs out of time.ShareUpdated at 06.49 CEST