Updated ,first published
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says national security and counterterrorism agencies have met to discuss any risks to security posed by the potential return of 34 women and children linked to Islamic State, but he denied the government was helping them come back to Australia.
Burke said one woman would be prohibited from returning from the al-Roj camp in north-east Syria, but intelligence agencies had not determined the remaining members of the so-called IS brides group posed a threat. The women and children have been issued Australian passports, which the government says is a legal requirement.
The minister denied that those moves amounted to assistance or repatriation, after a News Corp article reported that high-level briefings had been ongoing for months between NSW, Victoria and federal agencies to repatriate the group and make arrangements for their return.
“In that [News Corp] report, it makes a claim that we are conducting repatriation. We are not. It claims we have been meeting with the states for the purposes of a repatriation. We have not,” Burke said on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday morning.
“Our authorities meet with the state authorities to make sure that we are prepared if there is any chance of there being a heightened risk to national security.
“As soon as the conditions of the camp started to deteriorate, and there was a possibility some people would be getting out, which has happened … the national security teams, the joint counterterrorism teams, meet, as they did under the previous government, as they do now, as is essential for public safety.”
A NSW Premier’s Department spokesperson said state agencies were working with the federal government on law enforcement and security arrangements.
“NSW will continue working with Commonwealth agencies to manage any security risks. Any matters relating to warrants or arrests will be handled by NSW Police,” they said.
“NSW has well-established arrangements in place to manage any returnees, with community safety as the overriding priority. These arrangements were successfully implemented in 2019 and 2022 [when other cohorts returned to Australia].”
Former home affairs head Mike Pezzullo told a parliamentary inquiry in 2022 that the states and the federal government worked collaboratively on these issues.
“The joint counterterrorism teams in each of the states have a view about what needs to be done to mitigate the most egregious risks,” he said.
“If a state government chose to say, ‘We don’t want to proceed’, then I would have thought the Commonwealth would take that pretty seriously, because we have to rely on them for schooling, trauma support, counselling, public health support and the like. So it’s done consensually. All that information is put to them, and then they’ll give us the authority to proceed or otherwise.“
The Albanese government has taken a hard line against the group of Australian women and children who are attempting to leave the al-Roj camp, saying it is not assisting their return.
On the issue of them receiving passports, Burke said: “The process has happened as a bureaucratic process of officials obeying the law, and doing what they’re obliged to do by law, with nothing coming from any ministerial level encouraging that process along.”
But the Coalition is pressuring the government to deny the group re-entry to Australia with temporary exclusion orders, which are designed to protect Australians from national security risks.
One of the group of 34 has been prevented from returning to Australia under an exclusion order.
Burke said that woman had been deemed by intelligence agencies to pose a higher risk. He said the rest of the group had not met the threshold for exclusion orders, according to advice.
“Other than a temporary exclusion order, there isn’t a legislative power to stop an Australian citizen from entering Australia,” he said.
“One of my concerns with how the opposition have handled this, is they have effectively said the minister [should] be able to make it up … as though somehow in national security portfolio you should ignore your national security intelligence and law enforcement agencies.”
Burke said agencies had been following the group of women and children for a long time, and each had different histories and states of mind. “The cohort is not consistent,” he said.
Asked whether the remaining 33 people did not pose a threat to Australia, Burke said: “That’s right.”
He said he would take seriously any advice to the contrary, but that “on the information we have, the best way to protect Australians has not involved any further temporary exclusion orders”.
Coalition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam accused Burke of hiding behind advice.
“We haven’t seen that advice, and again it should be straightforward enough for the minister to allay concerns. If he is so confident that these people aren’t a risk, he should just say so, not hide behind advice,” Duniam said.
“These are people we don’t think should be back in this country and that pose a risk to our country. Now if the government are serious, and the minister himself said it again today, ‘we don’t want them back here’, do something about it.
“The Coalition have said that they would work with the government on laws to prevent re-entry of this cohort back into Australia, strengthen arrangements around temporary exclusion orders, strengthen arrangements around passport laws. There are ways of doing this.”
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Natassia Chrysanthos is Federal Political Correspondent. She has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via X or email.