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

The Islamic State caliphate is no place for children, and yet these individuals took their children there. To protect Australia's national security and our way of life, we need to think about and be very clear on what the implications are of reintroducing potential terrorists into our community. We have to ensure that that is not the case, and we have to understand what the government knows about these individuals. The government needs to be transparent about that so that we can ensure that we are not increasing any danger to our community on their return.

We need to ensure that we have an Australia where people aren't afraid to go outside to practise their faith or celebrate faith events because of who may or may not target them because they don't like the faith that they practise. Someone once said to me, 'There is a great responsibility in being free.' My father actually said that to me many years ago. He came here in the 1960s. He was a political refugee of a former Communist state and he spent a number of years as a political refugee in Europe before he was able to come to Australia. He always talked, before he passed, about the responsibility of freedom—that it is not easy, that it's not simple and that we are very lucky in Australia because we are free. Sometimes, you don't understand how easy it is to lose that freedom if you've always had it. I think that we are at a particular point in time in the geopolitical environment where we need to be very, very careful in protecting our values and our way of life. That doesn't mean that we hate others. It doesn't mean we have no moral compass. It doesn't mean that we are digging at the bottom of the barrel or that we're trying to divide Australia. It actually means that we are trying to protect Australia so that future generations can have the same freedoms that we have had.