This article is a continuation of the new series “Peter Dutton is a Racist” about Dutton’s history of racism and the role racism has played on both sides of politics since the 1970s.
I was surprised when Peter Dutton called for a ban on Palestinians coming from Gaza. Not because it’s inconsistent with his appalling record on race. In this regard, Dutton is completely predictable. No, I was surprised because as a former minister responsible for Migration Acthe would know that banning people of a particular nationality, race or religion is beyond the powers of the act.
It was similar to Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. Trump would be told once he became US president that such a ban is illegal even in the US. That was why Trump had to find another way to implement a much more limited visa screening requirement for people of certain nationalities.
While Dutton could demand Migration Act be amended to provide the power to ban people of certain nationalities, races or religions, this legislative change would have to override Racial Discrimination Act. No such demand has yet been made by Dutton or his colleagues – although they, parts of the Murdoch press and coalition figures such as John Howard continue to support Dutton’s ban in one form or another.
I was less surprised that Dutton made the call so soon after the race riots in the UK and the US ASIO chief executive’s warning to political and community leaders to watch their words. Dutton would not heed such a warning when there is great political advantage to be had. It is likely that he had little connection to the Cronulla rioters or the Christchurch mass murderer, both of whom were inspired by sections of the right-wing media and politicians.
Since Dutton’s call for a ban, his colleagues have proposed various explanations for how it might be implemented. Nationals Leaders David Littleproud and opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson have proposed the use of Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) in an attempt to exploit Labour’s decision to scrap them. They seem to have moved away from using TPVs now, perhaps realizing that TPVs are for people coming to Australia illegally, mainly for boat arrivals, not people arriving on visas.
Labor may decide to introduce some form of temporary humanitarian visas in an attempt to mitigate its mistake of initially using visitor visas for displaced Palestinians. Visitor visas have the wrong criteria for prioritizing people in humanitarian need. For example, a well-to-do person who has many options to secure a visa would likely be prioritized under the visitor visa criteria, while a child recently orphaned by war but with relatives in Australia would not qualify. This is why Australia has typically used humanitarian visas to deal with the situations of people fleeing war, as we did when the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
Faced with the current situation in Gaza, Canadians have allocated 5,000 humanitarian posts. That’s what we should have done. But that would not prevent Palestinians who arrived on visitor visas from waiving their right to apply for a permanent protection visa. Labor should have used permanent humanitarian visas from the start, just as Canada did.
The mistake opened the door for Dutton to scare the Australians by suggesting a lack of security checks. This is nonsense.
Palestinians trying to flee Gaza are closely monitored by the Israeli military for links to Hamas. The Israeli military knows more than any other organization on the planet which Palestinians have ties to Hamas. These Palestinians should never leave Gaza.
Egypt is also closely monitoring people fleeing Gaza and entering Egypt, home to about 100,000 Palestinian refugees. The country would also have extensive data on Palestinians with links to Hamas.
Australian government checks on visitor visa applicants from Gaza would use a combination of Movement Alert List (MAL) checks, which may include a number of Hamas leaders and operatives, as well as targeted checks on other applicants with characteristics of concern. It would make no sense for ASIO to screen applicants who have visited Australia many times, are not on MAL and have no characteristics of concern.
Palestinians who receive visas to Australia will also be screened at multiple points en route to Australia and then thoroughly screened again if they seek asylum on arrival.
I can’t recall any previous cohort going through such extensive security checks.
While Dutton has every right to criticize the Labor government for not using humanitarian visas from the outset, trying to scare Australians about the lack of security checks is just another appalling example of Dutton’s dog whistling.
It is also the first time a major party leader in Australia has flatly refused to help people with family ties to Australia fleeing war. It seems that we are no longer the nation that helped displaced Jewish refugees after World War II; refugees fleeing the aftermath of the Vietnam War; Kosovo refugees fleeing the Balkan war; Timorese fleeing the Indonesian army; people fleeing ISIS rampaging across Syria/Iraq; Afghans fleeing the Taliban; or Ukrainians fleeing a Russian invasion.
Do we really want to transform our long and proud humanitarian history by banning aid to Palestinians fleeing the war in Gaza?
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