Labor backs in ASIO as Palestinian man’s visa called into question by Coalition

Anthony Albanese has thrown his support behind Australia’s national security agencies, after reports emerged a Palestinian man was granted a visa to Australia despite supposed links to Hamas and other jihadi organisations.

The Daily Telegraph has reported artist Fayez Elhasani once hosted political members of Hamas and other organisations at his Gaza art institute, and his brothers and sons were allegedly linked to the groups.

Mr Elhasani has previously told media he arrived in Sydney in July, where he is staying with his daughter after his wife and other family members were killed in Gaza.

The Coalition used Question Time on Wednesday to press the Government on why Mr Elhasani was allowed into the country.

They demanded to know whether his visa had been cancelled and how he had passed the character test, given previous comments by ASIO that simply liking a pro-Hamas social media post could constitute a security red flag.

Mr Albanese referred every question to Immigration Minister Tony Burke but later told Sky News he had “confidence in ASIO and in our national security agencies”.

He called on the Coalition to be forthright if they did not.

Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said the Opposition had faith in the agencies but did not have faith in the government.

“There are questions that the Government needs to answer, and Anthony Albanese should be answering these questions before he gets on the plane to go overseas,” he told Sky News.

“The questions that need to be answered by Tony Burke and the Prime Minister are numerous.”

The Government has maintained it takes its advice from the security agencies and would not “defer instead to Google searches from the Opposition”.

Mr Burke had earlier quoted ASIO chief Mike Burgess after being asked what guarantee the Government could give that no individuals with terror links were allowed to enter Australia.

“If you think terrorism is OK, if you think destruction of the state of Israel is OK, if you think Hamas and what they did on October 7 is OK, I can tell you that is not OK, and from a security assessment point of view you will not pass muster,” Mr Burke quoted.

He went on to say: “The guarantee is the guarantee of our security agencies responsible. Our Government has confidence in them”.

In response to another question, he said security agencies “never stop collecting information” on those here on visas.

He said no people who’ve arrived from Gaza have had their visas cancelled onshore, but there had been some offshore.

At the last report, the Government had accepted only about 3000 Palestinian visa applications and rejected more than 7000.