Serious questions remain about secret meetings and communications regarding the ISIS Brides cohort.
Dr Jamal Rifi, a close personal and political supporter of Minister Tony Burke, travelled to the Middle East to support efforts to repatriate these terrorist sympathisers. Dr Rifi has confirmed that Australian passports were issued and that months of processing occurred – including citizenship applications.
Dr Rifi’s account of the Syrian Government’s response shows that the premise of self-managed returns doesn’t work – without active authorisation from Australia, foreign governments are unsure that they can allow repatriation. This is proof that the Labor Government should back the Coalition’s Bill over the next sitting of Federal Parliament. It would allay any concerns that Australia has contracted out repatriation efforts to third parties in one of the most dangerous areas in the world.
Following media scrutiny, NSW Premier Chris Minns and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan have both confirmed months of engagement with the Commonwealth regarding the return and resettlement of these individuals.
Passports do not issue themselves. Citizenship does not process itself. Planning with states to implement measures to prepare for the arrival of these ISIS Brides and their children does not happen by accident, neither do meetings with third parties to discuss repatriation and assistance.
Had these secretive and backroom efforts not been called out by the Opposition, the media and everyday Australians, the ISIS Brides would probably be here by now.
But the threat of a return of ISIS Brides remains – and this Federal Labor Government will still not put up a fight to keep these terrorist sympathisers out of Australia.
The Coalition is willing to work with the Government to protect community safety and national security through any means possible.
While in Government, the Coalition strengthened legislation to protect Australians by introducing Temporary Exclusion Orders. The Albanese Government’s position that they are simply following these laws omits the fact that they could change legislation themselves.
No Australian family wants to live next door to ISIS sympathisers, least of all those who fled the same region to escape that death cult.
But it is difficult to accept the Government’s claims that it is “doing nothing” when the public record points otherwise.
ENDS