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.
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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