Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Duniam, that is a question in which you have had no regard to the answer I gave in the primary, so I'll repeat it. Any Australian can apply for and, if they meet eligibility requirements, be issued an Australian passport. A passport can only be refused or cancelled on security grounds if a competent authority—a security agency such as ASIO—requests it. No such request has been made. Again, I'm not going to individual cases, but, in relation to the women and children in Syria that I believe the Senator is referencing, we have known about their potential return for some time, as have previous governments. The government is not assisting this cohort to return to Australia.