This week Peter Dutton has claimed Labor wants to “expressly push” new Australians through citizenship ceremonies ahead of the federal election – allegations the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, has strongly denied, accusing critics of a “whinge”.
In the same remarks, Dutton also again claimed the government wanted to “bring people in from a war zone”, referring to Gaza, and appeared to insinuate people from that region were among those being offered citizenship.
Burke says the unusually large ceremonies are needed because of backlogs in processing by local councils. He says the ceremonies are being held across the country – countering claims that the government was seeking to boost voting numbers in key seats.
Let’s unpack it.
What was the claim?
News Corp publications reported on Thursday that Burke’s department was conducting “industrial-scale” ceremonies in coming weeks to grant citizenship rights – including voting – to 12,500 people nationwide, including 6,000 around key western Sydney seats.
The Daily Telegraph said the area’s mayors were angered because the ceremonies had been “taken out of their hands”. It quoted the mayor of Liverpool, Ned Mannoun, as having accused Labor of “stacking marginal seats” and having “rushed through citizenship applications”.
Dutton, speaking at a Sky News summit on antisemitism on Thursday, referred to the story and appeared to conflate the issue with his previous call to refuse Australian visas to anyone fleeing Gaza, when he claimed the level of screening checks “puts our national security at risk”.
As Guardian Australia reported, the median processing time for Palestinian visitor visas between October 2023 and August 2024 was four months, contrary to Coalition claims they were being processed inside 24 hours.
Dutton told the summit:
Tony Burke is spending today and the rest of this week, as I understand it, conducting as many citizenship ceremonies as you can, and literally putting thousands of people through an express citizenship process so that they can vote in the election within a few weeks, which I think is quite remarkable. And I just question whether there has been any slackening of the process, whether there has been any compromise on the security checks, and whether it’s in our country’s best interests for people to receive citizenship before the proper security checks have been undertaken, or people have had – within the home affairs department – the time to be able to conduct the searches that we would expect to be conducted.”
Asked by host Sharri Markson of Sky News if he had “concerns that the Albanese government is fast-tracking citizenship”, Dutton replied “yes”, referring to the Daily Telegraph story.
Markson:
What would you like to happen to be assured that the processes are being followed?”
Dutton replied:
There needs to be transparency. If the government’s giving a nod and the wink to a particular part of society – they’re obsessed with the Green vote and they’re worried about losing seats, without being political about it – but let’s be frank about the motivation. Why would you bring people in from a war zone without the requisite checks, on a tourist visa, without precedent? Why would you do that and knowing that it’s territory controlled by a listed terrorist organisation? Why would you expressly push people through the process to receive citizenship in advance of an election which is pending?”
What does the government say?
The department of home affairs told Guardian Australia it was hosting 25 ceremonies between 17 February and 4 March, in cities including Hobart, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Toowoomba.
Such ceremonies are usually held by local councils. But Burke told Sky News on Friday there was a “huge backlog” in having applications for citizenship formally granted, because some local councils “weren’t having enough ceremonies”.
“I’m not fast-tracking it,” Burke said.
He said the people being granted citizenship were “legally qualified to become citizens” and had been “processed ages ago”.
after newsletter promotion
“I was meeting people who’ve been waiting for nine, 10, 12 months,” Burke claimed.
A home affairs spokesperson said the department was “hosting additional Australian citizenship ceremonies around the country, to supplement the effort of local councils … particularly where those applicants may not have had the opportunity to attend a ceremony with their local government council in the near term”.
Burke said he had hoped councils would have held larger ceremonies on Australia Day to help clear backlogs, but that he had taken the first opportunity – after summer holidays and early February parliament sittings – to hold larger ceremonies. He strongly denied there was an electoral incentive.
“They’ll be in all sorts of seats. A whole lot of them will be in safe Liberal seats. I don’t care,” Burke said.
“I just say to the people who’ve tried to whinge about this today, show a bit of patriotism, be proud when someone wants to make a lifelong pledge of commitment to Australia.”
As to Dutton’s reference to Gaza, a list provided by the home affairs department of the nationalities of applicants involved in the large ceremonies shows India (2,365 people), New Zealand (1,929), the UK (853), the Philippines (581), China (556) and Nepal (514) as the largest cohorts.
The Palestinian territories do not feature on the list. Guardian Australia understands there are no people from Gaza or any Palestinian territory being granted citizenship in this cohort.
What was the fallout?
The deputy opposition leader, Sussan Ley, claimed initial reporting of Dutton’s comments had “conflated two issues” in his criticism – that despite his answer (quoted in full above) mentioning both issues back-to-back, he was making two separate claims that the government was “cutting corners” on Gazan visas and also holding “rushed citizenship ceremonies”.
“Two separate concerns were raised by Peter,” she told Channel Seven’s Sunrise on Friday.
The education minister, Jason Clare, appearing on the TV panel with Ley, countered: “All these security checks were done last year.”
Clare said: “If you want to be the prime minister of Australia, you’ve got to check your facts before you open your gob.
“I don’t know how people are going to vote. It is a free country. People can vote for whoever they want to. The irony, though, in all of this is, four weeks ago, the Liberal party was saying that there’s not enough citizenship ceremonies. Remember all of that with Australia Day. Now, apparently there’s too much.”
Article by:Source: Josh Butler
