“I said that if you support a Palestinian homeland that may not discount you because that by itself is not a problem,” he said.
“But I also said if you have a violent extremist ideology, or you provide material or financial support to a terrorist organisation, that will be a problem.”
ASIO is not responsible for approving visas, however Burgess said that when investigating cases referred by Home Affairs adverse judgement depends on whether or not the the individual poses a threat to national security.
Last month opposition leader Peter Dutton called for a temporary hold on accepting visas for Palestinians while Coalition MPs called for the government to bar any visa applicants that express rhetorical support for Hamas.
“If people are coming in from that war zone and we’re uncertain about their identity or allegiances — Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation,” he told Sky News.
The government revealed in August that since October 7 only 2,229 Palestinians were accepted for visas out of 7,111 total applications while 8,746 Israeli citizens were granted visas with 235 rejections over the same period.
The Labor government has defended the current measures in place to screen visa applicants and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused Dutton of stoking disunity in an interview with ABC News Breakfast last month.
“We take our advice from the Director General of ASIO and the security agencies, not from someone always looking for a fight, always looking for division,” he said.
Photo: Asio Australian Security Intelligence Office by Akitora is available HERE and is used under a Creative Commons License. This image has not been modified.
