Blunt question Peter Dutton was asked on Today Show over his stance on bringing Palestinian refugees to Australia

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been asked if he is a “heartless racist” after claiming Palestinians fleeing Gaza should not be allowed into Australia.

Mr Dutton demanded that all visa applications from Gaza be rejected, claiming people fleeing the war pose a threat to Australia’s national security.

Coalition MPs wrote a letter to Tony Burke on Tuesday calling on the newly appointed Home Secretary to tighten visa controls on applicants from Gaza to ensure they do not express rhetorical support for the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

However, Mr Dutton insisted no one from Gaza should enter Australia at this time while speaking on Sky News.

“I don’t think people should be coming into the country through that war zone at this time,” he said.

“It endangers our national security.”

Mr Dutton was grilled on the Today programme about the phone call, asked if he was a ‘heartless racist’ and if he had ‘any humanity’.

“We have to make decisions and they may be difficult decisions, but the decisions are in the best interests of our country,” Mr Dutton said.

He alleged that in some cases the Albanian government had removed people from a war zone without conducting personal interviews.

“That’s unprecedented. We’ve had 1,300 people come here on tourist visas, again that’s unprecedented,” he said.

“I think it is a huge, recent mess by the Albanian government, and it puts our country at risk.”

He also claimed on Wednesday that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “misled” parliament or “simply had no idea what he was talking about” by saying the same process applies to releasing people from Gaza as when Australia released people from Syria.

“That’s just not true. Twelve months after we made that decision, I was still being criticized for not bringing people here fast enough,” he said.

Mr Dutton said face-to-face interviews and biometric testing were being conducted in northern Iraq.

“The government has done none of that,” he said.

“I am sure the vast majority of these people are innocent people fleeing a war zone, but it is in the best interests of our country if we know who is coming here and if we have a proper process to deter those who sympathize with a designated terrorist organization.”

Dutton said the government should impose a freeze on immigration for Gazans amid claims that people fleeing the war could have links to Hamas (pictured: displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip)

When asked if he would ban “all refugees” from entering the country, Mr Dutton replied: “We must prevent people from war zones from entering the country.”

‘We don’t know if proper checks have been carried out… If you bring in 3,000 people, 99 percent of them will be OK.

“If 1 percent of the people are questionable or sympathetic to a designated terrorist organization, how is that in the interest of our country?”

He added that his “job is to protect all Australians”.

“I don’t discriminate on any basis. I’m happy to see people from the Middle East brought in if they’ve been properly vetted,” he said.

“We make decisions that are in the best interest of our country. That is not what Anthony Albanese did.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (pictured) said Dutton “always tries to divide” and that his comments went against the advice of the director-general of ASIO and the security services.

Senator Jane Hume said there should be a “temporary freeze” on visas when asked in an interview with the ABC on Wednesday morning whether she supported Dutton’s call.

“If we cannot do the security checks to ensure that those fleeing Gaza are not Hamas supporters, then we must impose a temporary pause until we can be assured of that. We must do that to keep Australians safe,” she said.

Mr Albanese previously told ABC TV that Mr Dutton is “always looking to divide”.

“We take our advice from the Director-General of ASIO and the security services, not from someone who is always looking for trouble,” he said.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten told Radio National on Wednesday he did not share Mr Dutton’s views.

“I think I disagree with him if he somehow confuses the idea that everyone who lives in Gaza is a member of Hamas,” he said.

‘He didn’t say that, but he does say there is a risk.

‘We currently have a process where ASIO screens people, where we check national security and, Peter Dutton wrote, we use the same process that he used.

“So if he thinks our current process is flawed, what has he said about his time in charge?”