The Coalition will challenge Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to take further steps that stop the return of a cohort of IS brides and their children to Australia, seeking the introduction of laws that criminalise the actions of NGOs or advocates who help people linked to terrorism come back into the country.
New Liberal leader Angus Taylor sought to turn up the pressure on Labor after Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke insisted yesterday that the government was not assisting the 34 Australian women and children linked to Islamic State who are trying to return, aside from what was legally required.
The proposed laws signal Taylor’s first move to “shut the door to people who do not share our values” – the pledge he made when he seized the Liberal leadership this month as polls indicated Coalition voters were switching to One Nation.
Burke and Albanese have taken a hard line on the women and children who have been trying to leave the deteriorating al-Roj camp in north-east Syria, but point to legal requirements and bureaucratic processes to explain why the group has received Australian passports.
“We do not want the individuals in Australia,” Burke said on the ABC’s Insiders program. “Legally, you can’t stop a citizen from entering your country. Legally, if a citizen applies for a passport and the authorities don’t think thresholds are reached to be able to block it, then a passport gets issued.”
The Coalition is also pressuring the government to use temporary exclusion orders to deny the group re-entry. One of the women will be prohibited under such an order from entering the country because she was deemed by intelligence agencies to pose a higher risk than the rest of the group.
