BURSTHome affairs minister says there was joy and relief when he spoke to the five women in Queensland. Follow updates live
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‘Joy and relief’: Burke describes meeting the five Iranian women
Burke says there was joy and relief when he spoke to the five women last night to organise their humanitarian visas.
I don’t want to begin to imagine how difficult that decision is for each of the individual women, but certainly last night, it was joy, it was relief, and people were very excited about embarking on your life in Australia.
I made final confirmation with the director general of Asio Mike Burgess to make sure that he was completely comfortable in terms of security clearances for the people who I was about to make the offer to.
They are welcome to stay in Australia, that they are safe here, and they should feel at home here.
I signed off last night for their applications to go on to humanitarian visas. And a little bit after 1:30am this morning, the processing was completed by the Department of Home Affairs, I say to the other members of the team, the same opportunity is there – Australia has taken the Iranian women’s soccer team into our hearts. These women are tremendously popular in Australia, but we realised they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they’re making.
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