THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH KIERAN GILBERT, SKY NEWS

Friday 8 August 2025

Topics: Tony Burke approves visa of alleged Hamas supporter.

E&OE……………………………………

KIERAN GILBERT: Let's go live to the Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Andrew Hastie. A spokesperson for the Minister has said – I'll just read you the statement to get your reaction to it. The spokesperson says, "this is a serious issue. The government is taking it seriously. Questions were put to the department as soon as the Minister's office became aware. The government is serious in its view, about not importing hatred". Do you welcome that?

ANDREW HASTIE: Tony Burke is sending out a spokesman because he can't face up to the media himself. He's the Minister who prides himself on cancelling people for all sorts of hate speech. Yet what we've seen under his watch is a woman being granted a visa who supports Hamas, a terrorist organisation. So this is the Minister for double standards and hypocrisy. He needs to front up and explain his position. We need to know what the standards are by which he's granting visas.

KIERAN GILBERT: Apparently, the individual is still offshore. What's your call on the government now? Is it to reject the visa now, to pull that approval and to keep her offshore?

ANDREW HASTIE: Kieran, this is very black and white. She is not welcome in our country. And I'm confident that a lot of people share the same view. If you support Hamas, if you support the slaughter of innocent men and women, you're not welcome in this country. It's binary. We have standards in this country, and we don't want people who support terrorism on our shores.

KIERAN GILBERT: The Minister's spokesperson said – I'll read the rest of that. It says, "the government is serious, in its view about not importing hatred, and we set a higher bar when the purpose of someone's visit is a speaking tour". It's interesting that they've said that in the context of this story. I'm not aware that this individual was going to be speaking, but certainly she was the subject of a little publicity online, social media, with her supporters actually raising and promoting the fact that she received the visa, which looks like it could backfire on them quite dramatically here.

ANDREW HASTIE: Massively. I mean, that just read like a statement that's been put together by a committee of APS lawyers. It's very, very clear: we don't want people who support terrorism in our country. It's a very clear standard. We hold to certain values. We believe in parliamentary democracy, we believe in liberty under law, we believe in respecting minorities free speech, and we believe in the fair go. And if you don't sign up to that, you're not welcome in our country. It's very simple. But the bigger picture here Kieran is that Labor, under Anthony Albanese and Tony Burke, are throttling out on immigration. In their first two years, they added more than a million people to our population, which is 70 per cent higher than any other two-year period. Net overseas migration is through the roof. And if you look at the statistics from the year 2000 to 2019, net overseas migration averaged about 190,000 people. Last year alone, under Tony Burke, we had about 207,000 international students come to our shores, and young Australians are being locked out of the housing market because this is creating a housing demand crisis. Our infrastructure is being stressed to the max. We've got congestion through our cities. Our essential services are stressed to the max. That's why people are struggling to get to a doctor. Our hospitals are not working as they should, and it's also causing social cohesion issues. So Labor has a lot to answer for, and we need to cut the net overseas migration figure. It's as simple as that.

KIERAN GILBERT: Just to wrap up on this one, though, in terms of that individual that we've been reporting on, this person that has expressed support for Hamas – is there any way in your mind that that could be justified through the fog of war or whatever else in that besieged enclave, that could justify the sort of message that was articulated by her on social media?

ANDREW HASTIE: No, it's black and white. You support Hamas, you're not welcome. Simple as that.

KIERAN GILBERT: Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Andrew Hastie, I very much appreciate you making the time to speak to us. We'll talk to you soon.

[ENDS]