David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Unprincipled, unethical, unconstitutional—that's what this coalition bill, the Criminal Code Amendment (Keeping Australia Safe) Bill 2026, is. In sinking to the complete bottom of some fetid tank of coalition politics, the coalition scooped into the bottom of that fetid mess of coalition politics and came up with this bill to make it a crime to bring children out of a war zone, to make it a crime for Australians or NGOs to go into a war zone and try and protect children. That's what the coalition are proposing with this legislation. They bring it forward knowing it's unconstitutional, knowing it would get struck down within two minutes in the High Court—but they don't care about that. They want their hateful sound bite to feed a race debate in Australia and to feed Islamophobia in Australia, and that's what they're aiming for with this bill. They know it won't work, they know it's a legal disaster, but they don't care about the reality. What they want is their Islamophobic, racist sound bite to feed what they perceive as their base—their shrinking base. That's what this legislation is about.

We see the coalition come up here and try and demonise children—Australian children—who have had no choice in their lives and their circumstances, who are living in a desert detention camp in a deeply unsafe part of the region and who've never known basic freedoms. They've never walked on grass, never smelt a flower and never had the chances that every Australian child should have. This lot, this unprincipled, unethical bottom swill, come in here and try and get a political advantage by attacking those kids, making those children out to be terrorist risks for their own narrow political advantage. I don't know what the discussion in the coalition party room was before this legislation came forward, but, if you came together as a collective and you supported this unconstitutional, vicious attack on kids, and said, 'Yep, we can try and wedge the government on this; we can try and wedge other politicians on this by having no standards—zero ethical standards and zero legal standards,' then you deserve your disappearing voter base, you deserve the contempt of the Australian people and you absolutely, collectively, have the contempt of the Australian Greens for what you're doing.

Unlike those who want to demonise these kids and demonise their mums, I've actually been over into north-east Syria. I've been to the camp. I've been across the border, gone through the desert and seen the appalling conditions that these Australian women and children are being held in. I've spoken to the administration in north-east Syria. Do you know what they say? They say that Australia is a wealthy country, far wealthier than Syria, bigger than Syria, with far more resources. They say: 'These are your women and children. You have far more capacity to bring them back and, if there are security risks, to assess the security risks and to give these children a chance.' They ask: 'Why is your government not doing this? Why is your parliament not doing this? Why are you making this administration in north-east Syria, a country that is war torn, stripped of resources and has taken the brave steps of actually being out there and defeating ISIS, look after Australian women and kids?' They say: 'So many other countries have expatriated their women and children out of the region. Other countries are doing it and looking after them. What is wrong with Australia?' They genuinely ask, 'What is wrong with your politics that you won't bring your children home?'

What I had to say to them was: 'Our values'—Greens party values and, I think, those of millions of Australians—'say, "Of course we should be looking after our children," but the politics in the federal parliament is racist, toxic and Islamophobic. There are parties in the federal parliament who call themselves "parties of government" but are far better known as the "war parties" who will actually be doing everything they possibly can to demonise these children and use them as a narrow political wedge to get a narrow political advantage in feeding racism and Islamophobia in the country.' They shook their heads. They actually spoke about how, in north-east Syria, they've been trying to fight extremism, and they realised that they had to do what they could to re-educate and bring people back into their society. The scale of the problems they were facing dwarfed anything Australia was facing in terms of social cohesion and social harmony.

I spoke to women from the Syriac women's council and from the Syrian Women's Council. We sat down in a room, and they spoke about how ISIS had torn apart their families and killed their relatives. Some of the women I spoke to—for example, the Zenobia women's council, down in Raqqa, had been on the front lines fighting ISIS. I was in a room surrounded by images of martyred women who had been on the front lines fighting ISIS. They all said: 'What are you doing here? Why aren't you bringing your children home?' Do you know what they also said? It's something you'll never hear from the coalition. They said, 'There needs to be a pathway through, but you need to find a pathway through.' There were women there who had lost family members. They were going into these camps, having lost family members to ISIS, and were desperately trying to find ways to reintegrate and re-educate.

The degree of sophistication and common humanity on the ground in Syria is putting to complete shame this obscene political attack we're getting from the coalition here. People who have had their relatives killed by ISIS can see that you can't keep kids forever in a detention camp, and you can't keep their mums forever in a detention camp. They realise there has to be a way through. They can see it. When this coalition, and their mates in One Nation, come in here and make these arguments about demonising people by calling them ISIS brides and bringing the kids up in this dehumanising, brutal language, they seem to forget who it was that defeated ISIS in the first place.

Who has seen the greatest number of deaths from ISIS? Overwhelmingly, it's Muslim communities. Whether they're Kurdish, Yazidi, Syriac or Arab, it has been Muslim communities that have been on the front line fighting ISIS. They're the ones who got martyred in battles in Kobani and in Raqqa. Muslim communities are the ones who have done it. They've taken on ISIS, and they've fought and defeated ISIS. Those same communities are saying to us: 'Bring your children home. Bring their mothers home.' Unlike the armchair warriors in the coalition—who've never been on the ground, never spoken to the administration, never seen the kids and never seen the women—they've fought and defeated ISIS. Unlike these unprincipled scumbags in the coalition and One Nation, they are saying, 'Bring the children and women home.' That's what they are saying.