Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

What answers they were indeed today. I don't think I've ever seen—certainly not in the last few weeks—government ministers look so profoundly uncomfortable as they did responding to questions from the coalition about this issue. It is an issue that they clearly do not want to talk about. The inconsistencies in the answers that were given in this chamber and in the other, by both the Prime Minister and Minister Gallagher, and in the answers now by New South Wales police are stark. It was absolutely extraordinary to hear that the New South Wales police are now saying that they are working with the federal government, with federal agencies, to bring home ISIS associates from Syria. It is a concern that their security agencies are gearing up to bring home ISIS associates from Syria.

Can I remind those of you in the chamber exactly who these people are. We're not talking about refugees. We're not talking about people who have been taken hostage. We're not talking about people who have been dragged away kicking and screaming by a terrorist organisation. These are people who have voluntarily, willingly and with enthusiasm gone to join a terrorist organisation overseas to fight against our interests. This is an organisation that we have listed as a terrorist organisation. That has been done entirely intentionally.

Let me remind you of just some of the awful atrocities that have been committed by ISIS. They include things like the 2015 Paris terror attacks, the 2016 bombing in Brussels, the truck in Nice running over innocent pedestrians as they went about their business in 2016 and the Crocus City Hall attack in Russia in 2024. ISIS is a very well funded, well-organised organisation that has committed genocides of Yazidis, Shia Muslims and Christians. They have publicly distributed videos of beheadings of soldiers, journalists and aid workers. They've destroyed cultural sites and brought down a Russian passenger jet. This is one organisation, and these Australian citizens have actively gone over to join them in their fight. Now we hear that security agencies are gearing up to bring them home.

The government has said that they have nothing to do with this. That is an absolute nonsense. You could see Minister Watt squirming in his seat today. He would not answer the question as to whether this government has enabled the security agencies to provide travel documents and to provide birth certificates to the children of these Australian citizens that have gone to join a terrorist organisation of their own volition. Where are these people going to be resettled? Are they going to be next to your house? Are they going to be next to your kids' houses or your parents' houses? Where are they going to be? How can we be assured that they won't continue radicalising others? Let's remember that ASIO have told us that the terror threat has moved up just in the last 12 months alone from possible to probable. That we are now bringing people back into this country who have been radicalised and whose families have been embedded in this terrorist organisation, sometimes for years, but would now rather like to come home should be of concern to all of us.

Do you want to risk that for your families? I don't want to risk it for mine. Yet this is a government now that is not just enabling it but is hiding the truth from all of us. We've got very inconsistent answers. The NSW Police say one thing, the Prime Minister says another, and Senator Gallagher says another. We heard evidence last night that was contrary to all of it. This is extraordinary. What a cover-up. I remind you that there was a terrorist attack in New Orleans just over New Years. A man drove a truck into a crowd, and then he got out of that truck, and he killed policemen. He shot them down, and he shot down innocent bystanders. There were 14 people dead. He was radicalised by ISIS. These are the people that you are inviting back to our country. These are the people you are enabling. (Time expired)