SUBJECTS: Iranian women’s soccer team
MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS, TONY BURKE: Yesterday afternoon, shortly after Question Time, after speaking with the Prime Minister, I travelled to Brisbane and then to Sydney before returning to Canberra this morning. Prior to my travel to Brisbane, two members of the group that was part of the Iranian women's soccer delegation had indicated that they wanted to take up an offer from Australia.
One was a player. One was a support person. With assistance of the Australian Federal Police, they were separated from the rest of the group and taken to a safe location. They then met with me at the Australian Federal Police location, which is attached to Brisbane Airport. When I met with them, I made them the same offer that I had made the five players the night before, and that was that, if they wanted to receive a humanitarian visa for Australia which would have a pathway to a permanent visa - I had the paperwork to execute that immediately. They both said that they did. I signed off on that, asked the department to start processing straightaway and, overnight, that processing happened. After I'd flown on to Sydney, those two women were reunited with the other five players.
In Sydney, as the full delegation went through Customs and Immigration, people were separated. They were given a chance - each player, and each member of the team - with the exception of a small number of people where we had made the decision that we did not want to make a direct offer to them but all the players remaining and most of the support people were taken into interview rooms without any minders present - simply themselves, the Department of Home Affairs, an interpreter and they were given a choice.
In that situation, we made sure there was no rushing, no pressure. Everything was about ensuring the dignity for those individuals to make a choice. Obviously the one pressure we couldn’t take away was the context for these individuals of what might have been said to them beforehand, what pressures they might have felt with their own family members. Some of them wanted to make contact directly with other family members and we didn’t everything we could to facilitate that. Some of them had direct conversations with family members in deciding what they would do. Ultimately in Sydney none of those individuals made the decision to take up the offer from Australia.
After the plane had taken off, I met with the Home Affairs officials, members of Border Force and reminded them that they should still be very proud of who we are as a country and their role as the face of Australia when people were being offered a choice.
Australia's objective here was not to force people to make a particular decision, we’re not that sort of nation. What we wanted to make sure of, was that sometimes, possibly, for the first time these individuals were meeting a government that said, ‘the choice is up to you, here is the opportunity if you want to take it, but the choice and the decision is yours’. As Australians we should be proud that we’re that sort of country. For the seven people who have decided to take up that offer, they are now on humanitarian visas and the processing will soon start to for them to move to what’s called a resolution of status which is a permanent visa, I have no intention after everything that these individuals have gone through for them to have to fight through the courts for permanent status in Australia.
Obviously, for the two people yesterday, I went through the same processes that I had the day before in having conversations with Mike Burgess to make sure that ASIO was completely comfortable with the decisions that I was considering making and Mike Burgess said that was all clear.
For each of the individuals they were emotional meetings. They were emotional meetings for them and for the people from Home Affairs and Border Force who were meeting with them. I can't begin to imagine what people have been weighing up. As Australians, I think a lot of us would just wish that the context was something fundamentally different. But I think we need to remember this, when those players were silent at the start of their first match in Australia, that silence was heard as a roar all around the world. The world wanted to know, and Australians wanted to know how we would respond.
We responded by saying the invitation is there, in Australia you can be safe, you will be welcomed, you will be at home. For everybody who was given that choice, I'm really glad we did that, and for the seven people who took up that offer, we as a nation are lucky that you chose us. I think they are only just beginning to realise just how welcome they are here in Australia.
I'm happy to take questions. I know there'll be a lot, so I might just start here and move my way around.
JOURNALIST: Thanks. Minister, can you provide any more details about what kind of persecution the players and officials claimed any more detail about what they claimed, if possible, and also just in terms of the impacts on their family, could you give any assurances? Is it possible to give any assurances? Was it possible to in any way protect families from the inevitable outcome of being associated with somebody who's taken this action?
BURKE: The challenge with Iran is, we can’t even get Australian citizens, necessarily, out of Iran. I was very up-front in my meetings with people, because they'd asked me, can I now help their family members if I help them. I was very clear, even Australian citizens who are in Iran at the moment, we don't have a way of getting them out. Obviously, when people are permanent residents, there are rights that they have in terms of sponsoring other family members. But all of it only becomes relevant if people can get out of Iran in the first place. That was the nature of the conversation. In terms of specifics about persecution, I can't shed any direct light on that from the conversations that I had. We didn't talk in those precise terms, but I'm very mindful of the different comments that have been made by the Iranian Australian community. They've been very vocal in two ways, both in publicly making people aware of the risks that are there back in Iran. But also, in being the very public face to these individuals, the seven in particular, to know just how welcome they'll be here.
JOURNALIST: Minister, the diaspora has praised the for what you've done with the players - something that they wish that more could have been done with their handlers, the minders who were with the women, were they members of the Iranian regime. Could anything more have been done on that side to slow down this process? Because did seem like there was kind of frenzied communication at the end.
BURKE: My first interaction with being asked to make decisions with respect to this delegation was before anyone arrived in Australia, in working out who we would exclude. Not everybody who applied for a visa got one. If I put it in these terms - because I've some of the speculation - people who were connected, and we obviously work with security partners on these assessments - people who are connected to the IRGC were not granted visas in terms of that sort of connection.
That doesn't mean that that automatically means you are a great person, and there is a reason why some people were not a direct offer. There were some people leaving Australia who I'm glad they're no longer in Australia. The concept of people being completely confined and locked to their rooms - can I put it in these terms, there were certainly very big exceptions to that. The very late-night conversations that happened when I went up there on Sunday night, but nothing had happened, and in the first meetings people hadn't taken up an offer in the first conversation that had been sought. People then started to come down and talk in the foyer of the hotel. They were moving around, at least at that hour, without people watching them. That's not to say that there wouldn't have been other conversations that were happening privately that we would all view as unacceptable. The Australian Federal Police and the Queensland Police had a significant presence. But because of those concerns, there was no way we were going to see people make it all the way to a plane without having them away from every minder, without having them completely on their own with a chance to call family if they wanted, so that, as best we could they had agency over their decision.
JOURNALIST: Minister, there's reports that one member of the group tried to refuse to get on the plane in Sydney, are you aware of those? Are they accurate? And there's also been some criticism this visa offers are hypocritical given the legislation that you're trying to rush through Parliament that would restrict other people who already have visas from coming here.
BURKE: Okay, I'll deal with both issues. First of all there was one person who got onto the plane later than anyone else. There was one person where conversations with family were happening. We weren’t sure which way that person would go. That individual, though, ultimately made their own decision. There was a lot of work being done, there were particular family members the person wanted to talk to - and is a lot of work, including me sending messages back and forth from the plane trying to find the numbers and ultimately getting somebody to call a Home Affairs number from overseas so that the conversation could happen. But the people who that individual wanted to talk to were all made available. There was also, from our perspective, no pressure to have to get on the plane at all. So, there was one person who was quite late getting on the plane, but that was the context.
In terms of the legislation that we've got before the Parliament at the moment, if I start with what I've done with respect to the seven individuals who I've given humanitarian decisions. We've made a deliberate decision as a government that we want to help those people. When we run our humanitarian program, we make a deliberate decision that there are individuals that we want to help. When I've been signing off on visas for people in conflict zones - for example, the Ukrainians - we've made deliberate decisions that these are people who we want to help.
But you get times where you get a world conflict where you've issued visas for a different purpose and suddenly that could change the context that happens. So, we have a significant number of visas, and a test that the department always does is - do we think a visitor visa is for a genuine temporary purpose? That's one of the tests that we always do. Now of course, if you get a visa at a time that your country was not a war becomes a war zone, and then it becomes a war zone, there are visas out there that in the current context, we would not have issued. We do have the power to cancel them right now. But we have to do it individually for each one and that's just not a practical thing to be able to do. I want the decisions about who comes here permanently to be deliberate decisions made by the Australian Government, not an accident of who was coming here for a holiday, and then there was change in global circumstances.
JOURNALIST: Just on that, can you give us an idea the numbers of those temporary visas that were issued, and the nations that we're talking about?
BURKE: For most of the Middle East, there has not actually been enough of a change that it would cause my officials to say what was previously viewed as a temporary visa would no longer be. The fact that it's a conflict zone doesn't completely change that equation. Certainly, it does with respect to Iran. The number of Iranian visitor visas at the moment is lower than it had been at historic highs, and you would understand - particularly after decisions we took last year why my department has been more cautious and there are some people who used to be able to get visitor visas who are no longer able to get them.
There are in the order of 7,000 visitor visas for Iranians at the moment that are held by people who are not currently here. Certainly not saying that they would all seek to come here. Some of them may well be people who we would choose to make humanitarian decisions for and that may well happen. But at the moment, a tourism decision has been made, and the global context has changed, and we want the power to make sure that we can still make deliberate decisions as a government.
JOURNALIST: Of those women that made that really hard decision to return to Iran, what did they say to Australian officials their decision? What did you vision of some of the teammates pulling other players onto a bus as it was due to depart?
BURKE: Look, I saw that, and the messages were going around immediately. We had to make absolutely sure; we were going to provide private opportunity to everyone, and ultimately that happened for absolutely everyone. But that individual became - if organisationally, things started to take a different direction somehow, which they didn't - that person, absolutely, we had to make sure had the complete agency over their decision, without anyone else near them from the delegation and that's what we made sure of.
JOURNALIST: Australia knocked back some visas for people travelling with the team. How did some handlers get through if there were concerns they were coercing some of the players?
BURKE: We work with our partner agencies in assessing who is a security risk. Anyone who starts to become vaguely on the security risk profile on the recommendations from our agencies, then they don't get a visa, that's what is done. That doesn't mean, that it becomes impossible that someone might behave in a way that you find unacceptable when they're in Australia. And that's why we've taken some pretty extraordinary actions in how we've handled this group.
I'll go to back, and then to the front.
JOURNALIST: Thanks, Minister. Are you able to shed any light on any security advice or otherwise you might have about the risk of retaliatory action from the Iranian regime maybe here or targeting Australians or even the women returning abroad. And if I can just quickly on a second issue, this week, there was an incident in Ballarat where right-wing individuals appear to have targeted people leaving an Iftar at a community centre. Would you get the AFP to look into that?
BURKE: Our threat alert was already at Probable, and it remains at Probable. In terms of the security of the women themselves, I made sure, before any decisions were made that I had spoken to AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett to ensure that we had very thorough methods of making sure that there was a plan for the safety of those women. Those sorts of plans for safety - this is not the only time that that happens, with respect people who seek asylum. The work of the AFP, together with Queensland Police and other state police, was already well advanced when I asked that question.
In terms of what happened with Ballarat I'll say two things. I've spoken to Catherine King, the local Member of Parliament, about it today to get a good sense of the feeling in the community and a better understanding of the facts on the ground. I am meeting with - in fact straight after this - the Police Commissioner, Krissy Barrett, and this will be one of the issues that we talk about there. I would remind everybody; I started this media conference by talking about the sort of country that we are. People who go in to shout abuse at people and intimidate people and use dehumanising language against people for observing their faith – don't pretend you’re patriotic. That's the opposite of who we are as Australians. A whole lot of this, as I understand, is videoed and the fact that there wasn't an immediate arrest doesn't mean the police won't be looking at this very closely.
JOURNALIST: Just on the new legislation, could I ask you to explain I guess the urgency of it? This not the first time a conflict has erupted overseas where there would be people who have visas from that country or from that region looking to come to Australia. I think your department said in a hearing last night that they only started drafting these laws, I think, on Friday. There was a very short hearing held last night into these. Can you explain the urgency of this – why, why now, why so quickly? And I guess also just briefly on the football team, could you explain the supports and so forth they will now be given now that they've been granted visas - housing, you know, health and so forth?
BUKRE: Because of the nature of the visa that I've put the individuals on, it means full range of settlement services and supports become available for them, and our officials and agencies are really well-trained at doing that for people in this situation. Had I gone down a different path, those supports wouldn't have kicked in straightaway.
In terms of the legislation, there's two concepts. Why now? And why, once you introduce it, do you have to do it quickly and the answers are slightly different. The why now is while we do have a conflict, it is unusual to have an event of this scale where the number of visitor visas would be so significant.
So, the fact that it is well below historically what we might have had for people coming from Iran doesn't change the fact that it’s still a big number. I want to make sure that any decisions about people coming here who are likely to stay permanently are made deliberately by the government.
The legislation has no impact on people who are already here. The legislation has no impact on people who are the immediate family of Australian citizens or permanent residents.
The final part of it is, why do we want the legislation through quickly? The answer is simple. The moment you announce this sort of legislation is there, you get a potential behavioural change. You get a potential window where people say, ‘Well, if I was going to come for a permanent reason, better get in there quickly.’ You can actually create the opposite problem if the legislation goes slowly and I've been grateful to the Opposition for the conversations quietly we've been able to have while we made a decision. Had the Opposition not been willing to be fairly open - like they're still making their final decision, but be fairly open - about this pathway, it would have been better to not introduce the legislation. Because you get a behavioural change once you announce something like this.
JOURNALIST: Minister, can you give me an idea of how many people were involved in this operation to offer the visas to the seven Iranian women? And just on those that weren't offered a visa - you said, in some cases, you're happy they are gone. Why?
BURKE: Anyone, even if you go to the stage of what you might regard as legal pressure, like not direct physical intimidation but just trying to actively discourage women from taking up an option, that's not the sort of person who I want to give an option to. You make some fairly blunt decisions in my job as to whether people who might fall on the right side of criminality, but you think fall on the wrong side of character. They're the people who we were quite happy to see leave Australia.
In terms of numbers, I don't actually have access to the numbers - I could get it, I just don't have it. Can I say you are talking about a significant number of people in ASIO making sure that, normally, these checks are done after there's an application - we did them in advance on the off chance.
Secondly, you have the involvement of Australian Federal Police. We had to make sure, with a very significant police presence last night, that the people who we were glad to see leave the country made no attempt to intimidate or try to get physically near the people who we were providing a choice for. That meant a very significant police presence at Sydney Airport, in particular, last night.
Finally, the Home Affairs officials. I met with them last night, they were physically and emotionally exhausted from the conversations they'd had. I think because no one had taken up the offer at that point, for them, part of the challenge was, was that a sense of failure? I said to them last night the same as what I've said today - that, as a nation, what mattered was that we could provide the choice. So, across all of that, you're talking about a significant number of people. I just wouldn't want to guess at the number.
OK? I'll go here and here.
JOURNALIST: Returning to the vision, with the woman being pulled onto the bus - it appears to be, effectively, coerced. Did that warrant officials intervening at the time, do you think?
BURKE: Look, at that point and moment that’s a decision for Queensland Police. I’ve only seen myself - because I’ve been on planes and you can imagine what I've been dealing with - still shots of that, watching it from my phone. But in terms of where that's actually at in terms of lines of criminality is a decision that the Queensland Police would make and I presume they made that in good faith.
JOURNALIST: Minister, in the event that the women who left are still in communication with their teammates, I was wondering if you might have a message to the women who perhaps wanted to stay but didn't, for whatever reason. And just on the Asian Cup - it's my understanding that the organisers didn't complete a human rights assessment. Given the sensitivities that were always going to be at play with this tournament, is that a point of concern for you?
BURKE: I've seen, mainly through comments of athletes, about expectations of what sporting management is meant to do in these situations. That's something that I won't pretend to be an expert in. My job is to make sure that even when the organisers might fall over in terms of best practice, to make sure that Australia doesn’t. That's the absolute focus.
To remind them of two things. First of all, Australia made the offer because we are so impressed by these women as individuals. We want them to know that whatever they decided, they'd leave Australia with their heads held high. Secondly, to let them know that the choice that Australia gave - the choice of government officials standing in front of you and saying ‘It is up to you,’ is the choice that every individual should be entitled to, no matter where in the world they live. Governments that don't treat women with that level of respect are doing absolutely the wrong thing by their people.
JOURNALIST: There has been some speculation amongst cybersecurity analysts that Australia might be more vulnerable to attacks from pro-regime hackers. They've picked up a little bit of chatter in some pro-regime groups. Is the department aware of this at all? Is this something you're monitoring? And is there an increased risk that Australian infrastructure may be targeted by pro-regime hackers in coming days?
BURKE: Pro-regime hackers are among one of the groups that continues to target Australia and that from my first briefings, they are people who we are well aware of and the concept of an attempted hack - all of our systems are constantly under attack from a range of bad actors. Iran has always been one of them.
Thanks, everybody.
