TRANSCRIPT - ABC ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS - TUESDAY 5 AUGUST 2025
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS
TUESDAY, 5 AUGUST 2025
SUBJECTS: VISAS BLOCKED TO PROTECT SOCIAL COHESION, RACE DISCRIMINATION, PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: As we mentioned earlier, the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, revealed today that he had blocked dozens of visas to protect social cohesion in Australia.
Now the Shadow Minister, Tim Wilson, responded to the comment on morning TV saying he was worried that the Minister was making decisions based on his own political considerations. I put that and many other issues, including the cancellations, to Tony Burke a short time ago.
Minister, welcome to Afternoon Briefing.
TONY BURKE: Hey.
KARVELAS: You have criticised past practices of letting controversial figures into Australia on the basis of free speech. So, have you abandoned free speech principles?
BURKE: Look, the principles I follow are the ones in the Act, which in particular… you've got a principle that's there available for a Minister. It's up to the Minister whether you want to use it or not, but if you think someone's going to incite discord, you can refuse their visa, or cancel their visa. And for me, you know, when you talk about all the different hatreds that are around the world, there's one thing that people keep saying, which is they don't want hatred imported here.
Australians will have whatever views they'll have in this country, but if someone, particularly if their aim is to come on a speaking tour or something like that, if someone's got a record of just trying to blow issues up and turn people against each other, we don't need them here. And I'm really relaxed about saying to someone who wants to come here, incite discord, spread hatred, whatever language you want to use about it, just to say, "You can go to another country, we don't need it here".
KARVELAS: So, you've been critical of past practices where you say, you know, freedom of speech principles have dominated rather than applying this. Who would have you refused in the past that haven't been, you know, refused by previous Ministers in the conservative government?
BURKE: Look, I think the argument about free speech and whether you let a speaker into the country probably goes beyond the different sides of politics. Over the years, there's been a number of occasions on both sides, I've got to say, where there's been a controversial speaker and the Minister of the Day has just made the decision on freedom of speech grounds, "I'll let them in, you know, people will say what they will say". For me, I ‑‑
KARVELAS: You're saying on your side as well?
BURKE: Well, it's been, you know, going back to the Hawke Government, there's been different times when controversial speakers have been allowed into Australia, can't pretend that hasn't happened.
But, you know, I don't carry a list of previous wrongs. What I carry is some principles, where when people come back at me and say, "What about freedom of speech?". My view is really simple. We don't need hatred imported here, and if someone wants to come on a public speaking tour and they've got a record of saying horrific things, then we look at it, we look at it really strictly.
If someone, as I think I first announced on this program, if someone's coming on a visitor's visa, then you're a lot more relaxed, because you know, generally they're not going to make public comments, which is why I, you know, for some time Kanye West came and went in Australia, and it was a visitor visa, you know, it was ‑ had he wanted to come on a speaking tour or a concert tour, we would have had a very different view, but then, you know, even he reached the threshold with that Heil Hitler song.
KARVELAS: You've refused ‑ you mentioned Kanye West, and yes, you did share that on Afternoon Briefing, and also conservative conspiracy theorist Candace Owens as well; they were both highly publicised. But you are reported to have refused many more that haven't reached the headlines. Can you quantify it?
BURKE: Look, in terms of ‑ there's different categories. So you know, you'd have something in the order of 100 visas that get refused, in the time that I've been in office, something in that order, but they wouldn't all be on these grounds. So, some of them would be because of previous criminal offences and things like that. But you know, you’d be in the order of dozens, I expect.
You know, when I first came to the portfolio there were a number of these that I did personally, and then the ‑ because what the Act says is effectively the Minister may ‑ these are the grounds, you've already ‑ always had more people who are qualifying with the grounds than a Minister would have had an appetite to refuse or cancel.
Once the Department, you know, was clear exactly where I was drawing those thresholds, then I've let the Department run it accordingly.
KARVELAS: And so, their predisposition is to deny because that's the parameters you've set?
BURKE: Yeah, but you've also got to take into account where Australia's at right now in terms of social cohesion. You know, I saw someone from the Human Rights Commission was having a go at me in the papers today, claiming ‑‑
KARVELAS: Well, not just anyone, the President, Lorraine Finlay, she has said that the free speech principles are really important, so she's not just ‑ I'm not saying you called her anyone, but she's a pretty key figure in the Human Rights Commission that provides advice on human rights and free speech.
BURKE: Yeah.
KARVELAS: Yeah, she's criticised the way that you're handling this.
BURKE: Yeah, and look, I reckon it's probably fair to say that in Lorraine Finlay's life she probably hasn't spent a lot of time being a target of racial discrimination. But where people are targeted in terms of bigotry, they will say words are bullets, and most of the free speech warriors tend to be people who don't receive racial bigotry. And you know, you can be really brave if it's not being aimed at you.
KARVELAS: Well, there is some very big criticism coming your way from Tim Wilson, who has, you know, been a big campaigner for free speech for a long time. He's actually raised a case, he says you personally lobbied the Government at the time in support of a business visa for an Islamic extremist and hate preacher who advocated for the execution of homosexuals and the subjugation of women in 2019. He raised it today to suggest that there are contradictions, perhaps, to the way you apply this. What's your response to that?
BURKE: Yeah. I'm really surprised; I was told on the way to the studio that Tim Wilson had said that. I'm really surprised. I suggest he looks at the articles and my response when those allegations appeared in the papers, where I made clear that I never advocated for that person to have a visa, and to claim that I did would be untrue and defamatory.
I'm really surprised Tim Wilson has gone there. It's wrong. It was wrong then, and I'm not sure if he's just being reckless, making things up or lying, but if he reckons there's a letter of me doing that, he should provide it, because there's not.
KARVELAS: He says you need to make sure there are clear guidelines that are broadly equally applicable. Are there?
BURKE: Well, the guidelines are the Migration Act. The guidelines are there under law, and you know, Tim Wilson is another person who very bravely, you know, objected to 18C of the Race Discrimination Act. If that's still his position, he should say that.
He's another example of someone who's, you know, free speech warrior, allegedly, but you know, wanting to promote a relaxation of the laws of a form of discrimination that he will never feel. He'll go through his life in Australia, he'll feel other forms of discrimination, but the one that he was rallying against was the hate speech laws against ‑ in the Race Discrimination Act, Section 18C. And I just think it's a bit pathetic where somebody who never feels personally these forms of bigotry wanders around saying it's just words.
We've seen in real time in Australia the damage and harm that is done by antisemitism, the damage and harm that is done by Islamophobia, the damage and harm that is done by racism against First Australians, and for people to make light of that and say it's just words, I really reckon they ought to wake up, and you know, don't just come into Parliament basing all your arguments on your own personal life experience, have a bit of empathy and accept that there are people who get hit really hard by these other forms of bigotry.
We have laws to protect against that. We have a Migration Act that says if someone's going to come and incite discord by promoting further these forms of bigotry, we've got the right to say we don't want them here, and you know, as Australia's Immigration Minister, I'm really happy to say, people who want to come here to promote bigotry, I don't want them here.
KARVELAS: Well, Minister, I'm interested in the applications. You're saying there's lots of different reasons, we can't go through, you know, 100 applications, but are they broadly antisemitic, are they broadly Islamophobic? What can you tell us about the composition of the types of people that are trying to obtain entry to Australia?
BURKE: You'll find examples ‑ look, a lot of them are about criminal offences, so I don't want to, you know, discount the fact that there's a lot that are not the conversation that we're having right now. But you will find people ‑ and it's a different threshold depending on the sort of visa, you know, it's the same legal threshold in terms of the Act, but the test of, are you going to incite discord is very different; if you're coming quietly, you know, visiting a tourist site and going home, to if you're going to give a speech in front of thousands of people. So that's how it has to be weighed up.
But within that, within that, most of the ones that have been ‑ and not all of them come personally past my desk, the Department then goes off and deals with them, but there have been a disproportionately high number of examples recently where we were concerned about antisemitism and where we were concerned about Islamophobia. There will be other forms of bigotry and inciting of discord that are relevant as well, but those two right now are certainly disproportionately high.
KARVELAS: Minister, Palestinian statehood is very much on the agenda. Some Jewish groups have warned early Palestinian recognition could fuel violence here. You are the Minister overseeing ASIO that provides this kind of advice. Is there any warning or advice that you have that declaring Palestinian statehood on behalf of Australia would have that kind of impact here?
BURKE: I have no reason to have that particular concern. Certainly there are different ways in which the community in, you know, throughout Australia at the moment, that there are heightened tensions, and all of that is very real, and our security agencies look at that very carefully, but I've not seen it as specifically charged to a link to Palestinian recognition, as you just described.
KARVELAS: Have you received the anti ‑ or the Islamophobia Envoy's report yet?
BURKE: Not yet, not yet, I don't think it will be too long before Aftab Malik has completed that work and passes it through to me, but I haven't personally received it yet. I'm really glad that he's doing the work, and I'm glad the position exists. If I can say, beause I know some people said, "Why don't you just do both this and the antisemitism work through the Human Rights Commission?" One of the challenges, if you look at our hate speech laws generally in Australia, not the ones linked to physical violence but the ones that are just about hate speech, we cover a series of different categories, but we don't cover people's faith. And both Islamophobia and part of antisemitism, not all of antisemitism, it's slightly different, but part of antisemitism and all Islamophobia are based on bigotry because of people's faith, and so that was why it was important to establish these specific roles.
Some people have said, well, what about, you know, Palestinian bigotry, another form of bigotry? Other forms generally are already captured by the laws in Australia, religious bigotry isn't, so to have these two bodies of work, I think's really important.
KARVELAS: There's a lot of concern around the timeline here. Today Penny Wong suggested that Palestinian statehood was a sense of ‑ there was a sense of urgency, or there won't be any for Palestine to actually recognise. Do you agree that there's a sense of urgency around this?
BURKE: Oh, it's horrific what people are seeing, and I'm sorry that we're in a debate where every time you ‑ and I'm not saying you do this ‑ but part of the debate in Australia and in this building at the moment is every time you show sympathy for what's happening to the Palestinian people someone wants to say, "Oh, are you saying the hostages shouldn't be released?" Of course the hostages should be released, and of course Israel needs to be able to live in peace and security; of course, Hamas can't be part of the answer here.
It is also true that we are – the starvation we are watching cannot go on, and the Palestinian people, you know, we've always argued two states; part of that is you get to a point where you recognise Palestine as a state, just as we already do Israel.
There is a dignity for the Palestinian people that comes with that. There is a sense, and you can understand why, that Palestinian people all around the world and in the West Bank in Gaza and East Jerusalem at the moment would feel in different ways that they're invisible, and to be able to say, "No, no, no, you are recognised as a state by these various countries", it is a big signal to those individual peoples. It's not a signal to Hamas or anyone like that, and so, you know, it's something where the Government in working through this is wanting to make sure that any step taken is as meaningful as possible and is the biggest contribution it could possibly be towards peace.
KARVELAS: Minister, final question on a very big issue. There are reports you haven't issued an invitation for your points‑based general skills visa stream since November, and there's a delay that's been called "unprecedented" in the program's history. When are we going to get that number?
BURKE: In terms of what we're doing with processing at the moment is my officials still work on last year's numbers and continue the processing based on that. There is a process consultation that happens with the states, the Treasurer's doing that together with me at the moment. It won't be long before the number's there, but in terms of the immigration process itself, because we keep processing based on last ‑ the previous year's announced allocation, there's not a slowing down or a problem for anyone who's making applications as a result.
KARVELAS: Minister, thanks for your time.
BURKE: Great to talk, see you.
ENDS