Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should apologise to ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess, says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

In an interview with ABC 7.30 this morning, Burgess clarified his comments about Palestinian refugees, saying comments he made on ABC’s Insiders last month were misrepresented.

“I’ve watched with interest over the last couple of weeks how people have chosen to distort what I said,” Burgess told the ABC.

“I said that if you support a Palestinian homeland that may not discount you [from entering Australia] because that by itself is not a problem. But I also said if you have a violent extremist ideology, or you provide material or financial support to a terrorist organisation, that will be a problem.”

Burgess didn’t specify who had distorted his initial statement, but both Dutton and opposition defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie responded to the comments, implying ASIO’s security checks would allow Hamas sympathisers to come to Australia.

Taking a question on Burgess’ clarification, Dutton said he welcomed the clarification but criticised the Albanese government for allowing refugees from Gaza into Australia, suggesting its policy had put ASIO in a difficult position.

Loading

“The problem is that [ASIO have] got a government who has brought in 1300 people from Gaza without the requisite security checks. It’s reckless, it puts our national security at risk,” he said.

“Now you’ve got ASIO and the Australian Federal Police chasing their tail, spending an enormous amount of resources and money trying to identify whether people are of questionable character or not,” Dutton continued.

“And I think the prime minister, by misleading the parliament about ASIO, suggesting that ASIO reject each of these individuals, which they haven’t, I think he’s put Mr Burgess in a difficult position. I think it’s very clear the prime minister should be apologising to the ASIO boss for what they’ve put in place.”