Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, in my speech on the Criminal Code Amendment (Keeping Australia Safe) Bill 2026, I'm not going to attack your party or your views or the individuals within your party. I think this chamber could be better placed for us to discuss our differences in a manner that doesn't attack one another. That's been the manner in which I conduct myself here, and I think that is what Australians expect from us in a debate as important as this one. It is an important one, and there are many things that you said that made me pause to think about those perspectives. I hope there are some things that I say that may encourage you to pause as well and perhaps not use the kind of language that you did. I don't say it to admonish you; I say it in order for us in this chamber, all of us, to find a better way to engage with each other because I am tired of people attacking each other as human beings when we're trying get across our views on an important debate. I've had enough of it and I expect others have as well. I'm going to change my speech based on some of the comments that you've made, particularly in relation to statements like 'hateful sound bite', 'moral abyss' and 'lack of moral compass'.

You've spoken a lot about children, which is really important, and the fact that some of these children have never been outside a desert camp, have never walked on grass and have never smelled a flower and that, somehow, our desire to keep Australians safe here means that we hate those children. There could be nothing further from the truth. The one thing that we need to remember is that it is the parents of those children that took those children out of Australia to a war zone—to the war zone that you spoke of. They took them there, to that world away from this world, and they took them there with them so that they could go and fight against Australian values for the Islamic State, and that is what we are worried about. That is what many people who have spoken to me at different community events or who have called my office are worried about. They are going, 'Yes, it is actually terrible for those kids, but what kind of parent takes a child out of Australia into a war zone?' and, now, when it hasn't worked out exactly as they would like, they would like to come back. That's not a discussion that I'm going to enter into now, but I think it's an important element of this debate. This isn't a scenario where these women and children have inadvertently found themselves in a war zone. They deliberately went there and took their children there, or the children were born there.

The reality is this legislation presents a way for us to try to protect Australia's way of life by putting a stop to the trafficking of terror and by saying that, if you choose to go to a war zone, to a terrorist hot spot, and if you choose to leave this country for that purpose, then it's going to be very difficult for you to come back and to have that knowledge that that is the circumstance which you will face. We will make it an offence for anyone to assist the repatriation of dangerous people associated with a terrorist organisation without the express permission of both the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. That doesn't mean they can't come back if there is a special circumstance. That means you have to meet that threshold test, and that is what is important.

I've been thinking a lot about the comments that Senator Shoebridge made about the people that he visited in the camp and the stories that they told, and there is another side to this. A couple of weeks ago, I sat in a room with about 30 or 40 people who had either directly or indirectly been impacted by the actions of ISIS. I had two grown men cry in front of me as they retold their stories of what they had endured, and it's difficult to speak of, so I'm not going to do it now, but what they had endured purely because they wanted to maintain their faith—they had been targeted, persecuted and physically harmed simply because they refused to convert from their Christian faith to Islam. These are the types of people that we're talking about. These are the types of mindsets and autocratic ideologues that we are talking about. We have to understand and acknowledge and accept, however uncomfortable, that these individuals chose to leave Australia to go and fight for that—fight for an autocratic regime that forces other people to abide by their faith and that takes away their basic freedoms. We need to think about that. We have all seen what has transpired here in the last few days in relation to the Iranian women's soccer team. That broke my heart, as it did many Australians'—that these young women had to make a choice about whether they stay here and never see their families again or not for very, very long time, because of a choice they make to stay here and be free, knowing that, if they stay here and choose to be free, harm may come to their families back home because of their choice as to what they've done here, or, alternatively, they can go back and also face potential harm because they stood in silence, a silent protest against an autocratic regime when they refused to sing the national anthem. Have a think about that. Have a think about what that really means. This is not about, as Senator Shoebridge said, us 'looking for hateful sound bites' or 'having no moral compass'; this is about us fighting for Australia, fighting for Australians and fighting for the Australian way of life.

The reality is that, if people choose to walk away from that, then the test to come back should be harder. While, yes, we do have an obligation to all Australians, our primary obligation is to ensure that the majority of Australians are safe—that we keep Australians safe and that we don't allow people to come back who want to harm the Australians who are here. One of the individuals that's talked about in the cohort of ISIS brides, before she left, made comments around how she wanted to go and make bombs. That is someone whose decision-making is clear-eyed. That is someone who has left the peace, the green grass and the flowerbeds of Australia. Senator Shoebridge spoke about people who had never smelt or seen a rose, but they chose to leave here to go there and fight for Islamic State and to fight for everything that is opposed to Australian values and the freedoms that we fight for. These are the freedoms that so many people who came to this country fought for in coming here. These are the freedoms that this building is here for, and that each of us is here for.

I'm not going to be ashamed of standing here and saying that I want to defend the people that are here in Australia and the people that share those values, because they are really important—as were every one of the 15 people that was killed on 14 December in Bondi. They too deserved to be safe and they weren't. They weren't safe here in Australia. The same regime and ideology that these people wanted to go and support sent a directive that Australia should be attacked—a synagogue in Melbourne, a restaurant in Sydney. There potentially were other attacks, but those two were for sure. They sent directives that Australia should be attacked because they don't like the freedoms that we have here, and because they don't like the fact that they don't have control over our ideology here in the same way that they have over there. We need to think about that, and we need to think about the risks that that presents to Australians.

Whilst I accept and recognise the concerns for those small children, we also have to accept and recognise that the actions of the parents of those small children were the reason that those children have been placed into danger. Those children and those women are not where they are because of anything that the Australian government, the coalition or the Australian community has done. It is because they supported the apocalyptic Islamofascist ideology over there. It's because they supported the extremism that they went to fight for.

It is not up to us to ensure that their safety is prioritised over the safety of everyday Australians here. That doesn't mean that they can never come back here, but what it does mean is that they have to meet particular tests in order to return. I think that is perfectly reasonable, and I think that everyday Australians would agree that that is perfectly reasonable. I have been struck by your words, Senator Shoebridge, but what has struck me even more is how any parent could take their child into such an environment. We talk about our moral compass, but where is the moral culpability of those parents who took their children there? What were they thinking when they made those decisions?