ASIO boss Mike Burgess says his comments over Gaza visas were ‘distorted’

ABC NEWS (Australia)

ASIO boss Mike Burgess says his comments on the vetting process for people fleeing Gaza have been misrepresented. A political storm erupted last month over his comments on who would be offered visas.

Transcript

00:00The ASIO boss, Mike Burgess, was on Insiders a few weeks ago giving an interview.

00:08His interview led to just relentless questioning from the opposition during question time here

00:13in Canberra.

00:14It was also around the same time that opposition leader Peter Dutton was calling for a ban

00:19on Palestinians from Gaza trying to come to Australia, trying to get visas to Australia.

00:26So to run through some of these comments on Insiders, Mike Burgess was asked if it was

00:30a problem if Palestinians expressed support or sympathy for Hamas.

00:36Mike Burgess said it depends on what that looks like.

00:38He points out that there's a difference between if someone is supportive because they want

00:41their homeland of Palestine or giving financial support or material aid.

00:47He said that could be a problem.

00:49So he says that if there's financial support or material aid for Hamas, then that could

00:54be a problem, saying that each case is looked at on its merits.

00:58Now Mike Burgess was also saying in that interview with David Spears on Insiders, if it's just

01:04rhetorical support and they don't have an ideology or support for violent extremism

01:09ideology, then that's not a problem, but if they support that ideology, then it could

01:13be a problem.

01:14So now he's given this interview to ABC's 730, saying that he's been watching with interest

01:20as people have chosen to distort what he said.

01:24And so he sought to explain that, pointing out that explicit support for Hamas will always

01:29trigger an adverse security assessment by ASIO.

01:34And he used this example of on Twitter saying if someone was liking or sharing posts on

01:39Twitter saying that the terrorist attacks of October 7 were acceptable, then of course

01:45that's going to be a problem.

01:46Now federal politicians, it's really led to a blame game.

01:49The opposition leader Peter Dutton says that he has welcomed this clarification, but he's

01:55still got questions about security checks for the Labor government.

01:59I welcome the clarification from the Director-General of ASIO.

02:02Mike Burgess is a very good man and he works day and night to keep our country safe.

02:06And the work of ASIO is to be respected by all Australians.

02:10But the problem is that they've got a government who has brought in 1,300 people from Gaza

02:14without the requisite security checks.

02:18It's reckless.

02:19It puts our national security at risk.

02:22Now Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Coalition has been point scoring with this,

02:27referring to those questions during question time a few weeks ago, saying that the Coalition

02:34was sort of going through word by word of Mike Burgess' statement, saying that he has

02:38always been supportive of the Director-General.

02:41Take a listen.

02:42I'm not surprised that Mr Burgess has responded, because Mr Burgess does each and every day,

02:49wakes up and every waking minute before he goes to bed is about keeping Australians safe.

02:54And he has my title confidence and the Coalition should stop undermining that and should support

03:03the work that he does.

03:05So those comments from Mike Burgess certainly getting quite the reaction from federal politicians.

03:12I'm not surprised that Mr Burgess has responded, because Mr Burgess does each and every day,

03:18wakes up and every waking minute before he goes to bed is about keeping Australians safe.

03:23And he has my title confidence and the Coalition should stop undermining that and should support

03:28the work that he does.

03:30So those comments from Mike Burgess certainly getting quite the reaction from federal politicians.

03:35And he has my title confidence and the Coalition should stop undermining that and should support

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