Abul Rizvi — a former deputy secretary at the Department of Immigration from the early 1990s to 2007 — said visa application checks involve three steps; looking into a person's identity, their connections, and whether they're on a 'movement alert' list.
"So, a person who applies for a visitor visa, a Palestinian who has managed to escape Gaza, would firstly be checked from an identity perspective," he told SBS News.
How Australia decides who gets a visa and who doesn't. By Ewa Staszewska, SBS News