2GB politics reporter on Dutton's motion against Albanese 04:22

Well, things are heating up in Canberra this afternoon. Peter Dutton attempting to move a motion requiring Anthony Albanese to explain how Palestinian refugees fleeing Gaza are having their visas processed. And Peter Dutton's also repeating his attacks on the Prime Minister for misquoting the ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess over the agency's roles in vetting visas. He didn't miss, Peter Dutton.

This parliament has now sat for three hours today and the Prime Minister should have come in here at the ringing of the bells, Mr Speaker, to correct the record. To explain to the Australian public and to this parliament why he misled them and why he did it in that fashion last week. It's one thing, Mr Speaker, to come in to this parliament and to quote from a document. The Prime Minister is perfectly entitled to do that, as is any member.

But you can't leave out the middle of one sentence that you're quoting and pretend that that is an accurate reflection of what has been said by the person you are quoting. It's beyond tricky. It's duplicitous. This Prime Minister walks both sides of the street.

The Australian public know that. Peter Dutton in the House of Reps there. Well, our federal politics reporter, Zach De Silva, he's on the line for us. Zach, g'day. G'day, Chris. Good to be with you. Thanks for coming on. So the motion itself, what would it require Labor to do?

Yeah, Chris, this has been bubbling along for a couple of days and there are a couple of elements to it. I've got the motion in front of me at the moment. It's a pretty bog standard procedural motion. These things come up in Parliament all the time. There are two main elements to it. The first is kind of what we heard there, Dutton attacking the Prime Minister, claiming that he misquoted Mike Burgess.

In question time last week. Now, Mike Burgess did this interview on the ABC last weekend, so more than a week ago. And Albanese quoted Burgess talking about these Palestinians coming from Gaza, saying if they've been issued with a visa, they've gone through the process. They referred to my organisation and ASIO does its thing. But

In the middle of that quote, which was omitted when Anthony Albanese read it out in Question Time, Mike Burgess said, where criteria are hit, they're referred to my organisation and ASIO doesn't think. So the distinction here is over where all people coming from Gaza are being cleared by ASIO before they're allowed into Australia. Now, the first part of this motion outlines that kind of criticism, saying that...

the Prime Minister misled the Parliament and then demanding that Anthony Albanese come in. And there are a whole list of things that they want him to explain in terms of how these checks are being done, who's being checked. And the government's kind of in the last hour or so in question time found a couple of new lines of attack in response.

They're saying, you know, this is a national security issue. They don't want to talk about it publicly because you don't want to tell someone you're doing a background check on them while you're doing the background check. And secondly, saying, well, the coalition also let people in from the Palestinian territories on these visas, although obviously that was before the war started.

Look, the motion's not going to succeed, surely. It wouldn't have the support of the crossbench, would it? No, no. These are the kinds of things that the opposition moves in every now and then. This is in the House of Reps, so Labor has the numbers. This kind of thing will be shut down. I appreciate you coming on, Zach. Just before I let you go, what's your read on this? Do you think that this is... Is it Peter Dutton overreaching potentially, or do you think he's getting somewhere? No.

Look, if you talk to Peter Dutton's people and you look at his media schedule, he clearly thinks he's on to a winner with this. He's done a lot of media appearances trying to make the case here. But you've got even Jewish groups saying that he's overreaching here. Some Jewish groups, I'll say, not all of them, but some saying, look, he has overreached here and...

This has been a longstanding thing of letting people in. And, of course, the government's other criticism here is, well, actually, no one's getting out of Gaza at the moment anyway because Israel controls the border. So either way, it's kind of a moot point. But it'll be interesting to see how this plays out ahead of the next election. Thanks, Zach. Appreciate you coming on. Pleasure. That's Zach DeSilva, 2GB's federal politics reporter.