Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's my pleasure to rise to speak to the Criminal Code Amendment (Keeping Australia Safe) Bill 2026, which is an important piece of legislation given the context this country is currently operating in.

Indeed, with some of the public debate quite heated at times, I think it is important for us to perhaps look at these things in a factual, calm, cool and collected way, while not underestimating the problems we face when it comes to our immigration system, our national security and our arrangements when it comes to our borders. All of those things are important, but they are things this government doesn't seem to take too seriously. They say they do, but, of course, this is not about words; it's about actions. It's about laws. It's about application of the laws. It's about ensuring that the government is doing the right thing by the people of this country, protecting them and keeping this country safe, and, as we say on this side of the chamber, protecting our way of life. I think that is an important thing for Australians to hear from community leaders, as we understand that you love this country and that you want to keep this country safe and keep this country as the land of opportunity that it is, and it is these sorts of measures that will do exactly that.

This bill, which has been brought forward by the opposition, has been brought forward because the government aren't doing anything. They are not taking this issue seriously when it comes to matters related to, for example, the so-called ISIS brides cohort currently seeking to leave Syria to come to Australia. We only have to remember what ISIS is, what they've done and what they believe in to understand the risk associated with anyone who would make a choice to associate with an organisation of that nature. ISIS is a listed terrorist organisation. The things they espouse, believe, talk about and do are not things that we share as values for this country. They are not friends of Australia. They are not pro-freedom, they are not pro-democracy, and they are not obedient to the rule of law in this country. We are talking about a group of people who—by association or, indeed, direct activity—have subscribed to the views, values and approach to life that a group like Islamic State would take, which is abhorrent. It is something we need to protect Australia from.

Of course, this legislation is very straightforward, because all it does is create a criminal offence for third parties who seek to assist in the repatriation of individuals who have committed a terror related offence or similar offences—that is, individuals who are not the government who assist in the repatriation of someone who has been a member of a listed terror organisation, who has gone to an area declared under the Criminal Code and remained there or who has committed a terror related offence. These are three fairly high bars, three categories of criminal offence which, of course, mean that you are knowingly doing the wrong thing; you have intent to do the wrong thing.

This new offence this legislation seeks to create is in relation to aiding one of the people who has committed one of the aforementioned offences to come back to Australia, to provide support to someone who has actively chosen to be a member of a listed terrorist organisation and to travel to and remain in a declared area that is a terror hotspot—for example, parts of Syria as declared under the Criminal Code—or who has committed a terror related offence. Those crimes are straight up and down and very straightforward to establish. Again, they're criminal offences requiring intent. If you want to support one of those people to come back to Australia, there is something very, very wrong.

The Home Affairs minister made it very clear to Australians, in his language during a TV interview a couple of weeks ago with regard to the so-called ISIS brides, that we don't want them. He said, 'We don't want them here; we don't want them to come back.' Yet this government are allowing this to happen through their own policy settings. They are turning a blind eye and washing their hands of their responsibility to protect Australia, and they are allowing others to take charge of who comes into this country and the circumstances under which they come. Indeed, the minister I mentioned is the individual within government who determines who comes in and out of our country. This minister is in charge of the immigration system, of our border security and of our custom. This individual is the person who says, 'We don't want them.' Well, I say to the minister: do something. As we know, the minister has done nothing, and that is why the opposition has brought forward this legislation.

The penalty for assisting someone or facilitating the re-entry into Australia of these people—who've committed a terror related offence, who've gone to and remained in a declared area or who've been a member of a listed terrorist organisation—is maximum imprisonment of 10 years, bringing it into line with other terror related offences under the Criminal Code. There's consistency here. But it does send a message, and it's a message this government desperately needs to send—that is that we are in charge of our border protection system and immigration system, and we are in charge of who comes into this country. The government say, 'Well, we're not facilitating the return of the so-called ISIS brides and their cohort.' If that is the case, then do something to prevent them from returning. If the words of the minister are to be believed—that is, you don't want them here—here is an opportunity to put your money where your mouth is and prevent others from determining whether these individuals come back.

This is what people and the sector call 'self managed returns'. That is someone who is an Australian citizen and can somehow gain access to a passport and make their way back to Australia. They have self managed their return. As we know, with regard to the so-called ISIS brides cohort, there are individuals and organisations reportedly assisting with the return of these individuals. These women and their children have been living in the displaced peoples camp in Syria for up to nine years—terrible environments. We all accept that.

It's terrible that there are children subjected to the horrors of living in these places, but, sadly, some were taken there by their parents. Some were born there and have started their lives there. This is terrible, but this is part of the facts of the situation, and it cannot be ignored that anyone in these displaced peoples camps presents a risk to our country. Therefore, facilitating their return without any proper assessment or intelligence around what these people have been doing and saying and whether they, including the children, are radicalised—we don't have answers to these questions.

The government is turning away and pretending that they don't know what's going on when individuals or organisations are over there helping them get passports and helping them apply for citizenship by descent and those sorts of things. That is not is what a responsible government does. Of course, there are questions around what the government has done and whether all laws have been abided by when it comes to, for example, the passports act, on a tangential issue. There are 34 people in this so-called ISIS bride cohort, adults and children, the make-up of which we don't precisely know. We don't know whether any of these individuals have ever been cited by Australian government officials.

As I said before, we don't know what intelligence vetting and security vetting has taken place to understand who these people who are now in possession of passports are. In another interview, Minister Tony Burke said that obtaining a passport is just like obtaining a Medicare card. Well, it's not. Yes, there is a right for Australian citizens to obtain a passport, but, under section 14 of the Passport Act, there is also capacity for the minister to refuse to provide a passport on certain grounds, including those related to national security threats. Again, ISIS brides have chosen to go to a designated terror hotspot to support their ISIS-fighter husbands who may have participated in actions that can only be described as radical, anti-Australian and anti-Western.

I'm not sure anyone can safely say without proper assessment that these people don't present a security risk, yet every single member of this cohort and others received a passport. They have not set foot inside an embassy, a passport office or a consulate as far as I'm aware, so how did they get them? Who paid for them? Who applied for them? These are all things that we don't know. Again, the government saying that they're not helping these people to return and similarly, I expect, refusing to support our legislation means that they are supporting these individuals to return to Australia. They are bringing a risk to our national security and our way of life into this country.

It is as simple as the title of this legislation. It is about keeping Australia safe and having proper processes in place that the government control so that the government determines who comes, under what circumstances it is in our national interest and is right when it comes to dealing with the terrible events we are seeing unfold in the Middle East, and the risk that they present should they come to our shores. Again, back to the legalities of the handling of passports, something the government have turned a blind eye to, as part of the assistance and organisation relating to repatriation of people who have committed offences as outlined in this bill—who was it that applied for the passports? We don't know.

The passports act, similarly, under section 37, suggests that only the authorised representative or the applicant themselves can handle the passports and carry them across international borders. These individuals, of course, haven't left the displaced peoples camp properly in many a year, and, therefore, as I said before, haven't had an opportunity to procure, obtain and hold these passports, let alone sign the documentation that would enable them to receive them. We had reports that legal representatives were the ones who applied for and collected the passports. We also had public statements by a well-known campaigner and long-time friend of Minister Burke, Dr Jamal Rifi, that he was, in his own words, the 'courier boy' who took the passports to the Middle East. We've had further media reports that another individual carried the passports into the camps. So the question is: were all of these people authorised to carry the passports? Or are these individuals in breach of section 37 of the passports act 2005, again pointing to a situation where this government is turning a blind eye to the laws of the land that are there for good reason—there to protect Australians, there to ensure that our way of life, our national security, is preserved. That's what they're doing; they are turning a blind eye because it suits their debate.

Now, they've ended the government-run repatriations which have presented this situation. I'm pleased to say that I met with Save the Children representatives last week, who are baffled by the government's approach to this; they feel like they've been left high and dry by the government. This is an organisation that did have meetings with the minister, meetings that representatives of the department were asked to leave because the minister and others wanted to have a frank conversation around how to potentially get these people back to Australia—something the government now denies and says is not happening. But the facts point to a very, very different set of circumstances. The government is helping. The government is rendering assistance, and this is jeopardising our national security.

As I say, Save the Children—the organisation that has done many good works across the globe in supporting those in need and those who don't have the rights and capacities that we do in a country like this—feel like they've been left high and dry by a government who've abandoned government-run repatriations. Because the government won't make a decision about who comes into the country and the circumstances under which they should be able to enter, they've been left to run this—proof positive again that this government is turning a blind eye to its role when it comes to national security.

This legislation is not complex. It's not draconian. It is not unfair. It is legislation that, at its very heart, goes to the preservation and protection of our borders, of the integrity of our immigration system and of communities across the country who obviously have concerns about a porous system that is not well managed, which is what we have under this government. To aid and abet, to assist and organise the repatriation of individuals who have, as I said before, committed a terror related offence, a serious crime, and have gone to and remained in a declared area, a terror hotspot somewhere else in the world—it's a difficult task to undertake. To get there and remain in those circumstances or to have deliberately and willingly signed up to be members of a listed terror organisation—again, that takes deliberate action; that takes intent. To support, aid, abet, assist in the repatriation of, or organise the repatriation of, individuals who've done any of these things is worthy of a consistent offence under the Criminal Code—10 years of imprisonment.

Again, it is up to the government to protect us. It is up to the government to run our borders. It is up to the government to maintain integrity in our border security and immigration system. But, by voting against this, they are again washing their hands, turning a blind eye and demonstrating that they're not serious about this and they're happy for these people to come in.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to make a contribution to the debate in private senators' time on the Criminal Code Amendment (Keeping Australia Safe) Bill 2026. The No. 1 priority of any Commonwealth government is keeping Australians safe. The coalition has always fundamentally understood that, if you as a Commonwealth government are unable to discharge that responsibility, then, quite frankly, you are failing the Australian people. Sadly, with the Albanese government, when it comes to national security, the Australian people are learning that they say one thing in public, but then, when you scratch the surface, a very different thing is happening behind closed doors. The ISIS brides, and the return of them to Australia, is the perfect example. Mr Albanese is prepared to stand up and say one thing to the Australian people, but behind closed doors it is a very, very different situation.

The Prime Minister tells the Australian people that ISIS sympathisers are not welcome in Australia, yet what we do know is that passports have been issued to them. The government says it's not assisting the return of the ISIS brides, yet what we also know is that federal and state agencies have been meeting for months and months to coordinate that exact outcome—that is, the return of the ISIS brides to Australia. In fact, after weeks of obfuscation, the Foreign minister finally admitted in question time that, yes, indeed, those meetings had taken place. But the Prime Minister still maintains to the Australian people that the ISIS sympathisers are not welcome in Australia.

I would have thought, based on those facts—that passports have issued to this cohort and that state and federal agencies, as we know because the Foreign minister confirmed this on the record, have been meeting for months to coordinate the return of the ISIS brides—Australians may be entitled to ask: 'Hold on; who exactly is telling the truth?' The Prime Minister says the ISIS brides are not welcome in Australia, but then we have a small problem because the Foreign minister then issues passports. The home affairs minister goes on TV and says: 'We're doing nothing. We're actively doing nothing.' Yet, again, as I said, the reality is that federal and state government agencies have been meeting for months to coordinate the return of the ISIS brides. Sadly, that is not a coherent national security policy. This is a government that is prepared to stand up and say one thing to the Australian people to try and look tough but at the same time, behind closed doors, is doing everything it can to facilitate this return.

Australians should remember exactly who these women are. They're not innocent bystanders caught up in a series of events. These are individuals, women, who chose to leave our great country of Australia, turning their backs on the values that we hold so dear and the freedoms that we have on a daily basis, and to travel—it was their own personal choice—to a terrorist declared area. They made a personal choice to leave Australia, to leave a democracy, and join the terrorists and live under Islamic State. They also chose to remain there while gross acts of atrocities were committed by ISIS, who enslaved women, executed civilians and, worse than that, broadcast that brutality to the entire world.

Let us be very clear. Islamic State is not a misunderstood organisation. It is not ambiguous. It was, is and remains one of the most violent terrorist organisations in modern history, and these women made a personal decision to leave the great country of Australia, travel overseas and live with these terrorists. Yet, as I said, we now have the Albanese government wanting Australians to believe that the return of individuals associated with that terrorist regime is somehow happening through what they are now calling 'self-managed returns'. Well, the Australian people are, quite frankly, better than that. They can see through that.

But, more than that, the phrase 'self-managed returns' should send a chill down every Australian's spine. What does it actually mean? This is what it means; it's black and white. The Albanese government has created a loophole whereby third parties can organise the return of people linked to terrorist organisations—but, conveniently, without direct Commonwealth organisation. Think about that. Decisions that go directly to the heart of Australia's national security are effectively being outsourced by this government, and they stand up and they say to the Australian people, 'There's nothing to see here.' Decisions are not being transparently made by ministers accountable to this parliament but arranged through intermediaries operating outside of public scrutiny—but, at the same time, there for everybody to see. That is utterly extraordinary. It is also reckless.

ASIO—it is a fact—already have around 18,000 individuals on their watchlist. Every additional high-risk returnee increases ASIO's surveillance burden. Every additional returnee stretches our intelligence agencies further. Yet, again, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Home Affairs stand up, they look the Australian people in the eye—they treat them like mugs, of course—and they tell Australians, 'Very sorry—our hands are tied.' That is simply not true. Why? Because it is a fact that the passports act allows refusals on national security grounds. Temporary exclusion orders exist precisely to delay or control such returns. The government have that option available to them today, but instead of using it they've decided, for political reasons and nothing else, to adopt a strategy of plausible deniability.

But the questions keep mounting. Why were public servants asked to leave the room when Minister Tony Burke met with Save the Children before a previous cohort returned? The more confronting one is this: why was a political ally of the government, fundraiser and campaigner Dr Jamal Rifi, travelling into Syria carrying dozens of Australian passports? I'm sorry, but Australians aren't mugs. Nobody carries over 30 passports into a conflict zone without serious coordination. Worse than that, Dr Rifi himself—a great supporter of Minister Tony Burke; you saw him in the election night video, there with Minister Tony Burke, congratulating him on his win—now says he doesn't even know who these individuals are that he's helping to return. This is someone who is over there on the ground and has in excess of 30 passports—that in itself raises legal questions—but he says he doesn't know who they are. Well, I can tell him who they are. They're women who turned their backs on Australia and turned their backs on everything that we hold dear here—in particular, our fundamental freedoms—to travel to stay with Islamic State. That's who these women are. They made a conscious decision.

Dr Rifi, who is over there helping them come back to Australia, cannot assess their mentality, he cannot assess whether or not they've been radicalised and he cannot assess the risk that they will pose to the Australian public when they do return—because let's be very clear; under this government, the ISIS brides will return to Australia. It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when. And yet, for some bizarre reason, he has been entrusted with facilitating the ISIS brides' return.

Australians deserve answers. When was this self-managed returns policy created? Who authorised it? Did the National Security Committee of cabinet approve it? Did ASIO support it? Or did the government, in typical Albanese government style, just hope Australians wouldn't notice? Well, guess what? We've dealt with this issue before, when we were in government, and we acted decisively. We didn't try and pull the wool over Australians' eyes. We were upfront with Australians in relation to the repatriation of orphans. What we are saying to the government is they need to be upfront with Australians as well, and that is why we have introduced this bill into the parliament—to keep Australians safe.

Our bill closes Labor's loophole. We will make it a criminal offence, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment, to assist without ministerial authorisation the return of individuals associated with terrorist organisations. On what planet did we ever think that a government would allow someone to go overseas to a terrorist hotspot carrying in excess of 30 passports, who admits he doesn't know who these people are whose return he is helping to facilitate, and allow them to return?

Our bill will restore something that should never have been absent in the first place but is, sadly, under this government, absent on a regular basis—that is, ministerial accountability. If ministers believe that these individuals—the ISIS brides, women who left Australia by choice to join the Islamic caliphate—should be coming back to Australia, then they should own that decision. Be upfront with the Australian people. Don't treat the Australian people like mugs. Don't say, 'We're doing nothing to repatriate them,' when, mysteriously, passports have been issued to these women and the relevant DNA checks have been undertaken on their children. It's a very strict process that government officials have to follow to establish whether or not a person is indeed a relative, yet government officials have been able to establish that fact.

How did 30 passports get over to this cohort? Well, we know how—Dr Jamal Rifi. Again, the government knows these women are coming back and is treating the Australian people like mugs. We are saying: 'If you want them to come back, you own this decision. Be upfront with the Australian people. Don't outsource it to someone else.' This bill will ensure that that outsourcing to another person—like that friend of Labor, the No. 1 T-shirt wearer for 'Friends of Burke', Dr Jamal Rifi—and that type of behaviour is criminalised. If ministers believe the ISIS brides should return to Australia, they should sign their names to that. Don't hide behind NGOs, don't hide behind democratic ambiguity and do not treat Australians like mugs by saying, 'We have nothing to do with this, because these are self-managed returns.'

National security decisions of this magnitude—in other words, bringing terrorist supporters back into the country—must be made openly and transparently and by elected ministers accountable to the Australian people, not by activists, not by intermediaries and, quite frankly, not through arrangements which the Albanese government hopes the Australian people will not notice. That is what our bill does. Our bill restores accountability and closes a dangerous loophole. More than that, it says clearly to the Australian people that the coalition, the alternative government, will always put their safety first. We fundamentally live and breathe that the first responsibility of a Commonwealth government is the safety of the Australian people. The government should support this bill. If Labor truly believe these returns are safe, they should have the courage to take responsibility for them.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to 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.

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

On a point of order, I would ask that Senator Shoebridge withdraw his comment, which I consider to be an parliamentary.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, I ask you to withdraw the comment.

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

Sorry, what am I being asked to withdraw?

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not going to repeat it, but, for the good running of the Senate, if you could just withdraw, then you can continue your speech.

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

I want to be clear, Acting Deputy President. I would—

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just withdraw, Senator Shoebridge. It's pretty simple.

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

They are my and my party's collective views about the motivation and the rationale of the collection that is the coalition.

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

Acting Deputy President, I don't consider myself or my colleagues in the chamber at the moment to be scumbags, so I would like that to be withdrawn.

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

So we can move on, I will withdraw.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Shoebridge. You now may continue.

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

Looking into the moral abyss that the coalition have generated with this legislation is hard, I understand, for the coalition. The complete lack of any kind of moral compass—I understand that it must be awkward to realise you belong to a party that wants to make political hay out of a six-year-old Australian kid that is trapped in a desert detention camp. I understand that it's awkward to look into the moral abyss you've created for yourself, but have a good look at it. Because I have been over there. I've spoken to a little six-year-old Australian kid whose only life has been a desert detention camp. She sat there in the meeting that I had with her mum, one of her aunts and another woman and drew a picture of Rapunzel and flowers, and she said that she just wanted to be free. She'd heard that there was grass in Australia, and you could run around on grass.

I spoke to her mum and her aunt, who had been—there are no educational resources in the camp and it's unsafe for the Australian kids to go to school because they're seen as wanting to come home to Australia and wanting a life separate from ISIS. They're actually under threat, and they can't even go to the rudimentary education camps that are there. I've seen the hand-drawn lesson plans that the mums and aunts were producing, trying to remember what their primary school lessons were, and hand-drawn images of the continents around the world or the different bones of the body or basic maths lessons. They're trying to give their kids some kind of future so that they can be ready when they come back to Australia to at least have some of the starting points to help their reintegration. I've seen that. No-one in the coalition has seen that, but everyone in the coalition wants that little kid to spend the rest of her childhood in a desert detention camp. That's what you want to do.

I know it's awkward looking into the moral abyss that you have created for yourselves and that you don't have any boundaries to where you'll take this politics or how you'll demonise. I know it's awkward, but we're just reflecting it back to you, your own selves. You're being reflected back to yourselves. Have a good hard look at where you want to take this country and your complete lack of any kind of moral limitations.

I come back to this: this bill wants to make it a crime to help bring kids out of a conflict zone. I've seen the former leader of the coalition Michael McCormack go to events from Save the Children and talk about how amazing the work of Save the Children is and talk about how they do life-saving work across the world and their absolute commitment as the world's longest continuous charity focused on children. I've seen that happen. I've seen the statements made by the former coalition leader. Now that same man and his party—I said coalition; I meant Nationals leader—wants to criminalise Save the Children. They want to put the people that he was supporting in jail for up to 10 years.

The Greens oppose this bill, and I'm glad to see Labor opposing the bill. I think Labor is opposing it because it's unconstitutional, but the Greens say, yes, the Australian government has an absolute obligation to keep Australians safe. That includes the Australian kids and their mums and it extends to that. We don't have rules like the coalition about who is or isn't Australian. If you're an Australian citizen, the Australian government has an obligation to do what it can to keep you safe. I think back about that little six-year-old who was on a bus a little while ago thinking that she might be free and then went back to the desert detention camp and who you want to keep in that detention camp. You know, she spoke with a really strong Australian accent because she's spent her life amongst the Australians in the camp on a street that's called Australia Street. I asked her about the picture and I asked about what's in the picture. She was pointing at them and said, 'Oh, they're roses.' I said, 'Well, what do you think about them?' She said, 'I've never seen a rose; I've never smelt a rose.' That's the future you want for her. We despise you for it and we see you. We oppose this bill.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women) Share this | Link to 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?

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What were the children thinking?

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

We need to consider it. You can't have it both ways.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Kovacic, I will just remind you to direct your comments through the chair.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women) Share this | Link to 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.

Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation, unsurprisingly, supports the Criminal Code Amendment (Keeping Australia Safe) Bill 2026. Australians are outraged at the way the Albanese Labor government has conducted itself in repatriating ISIS terrorists. Let's be clear. That is what these ISIS brides are. 'Brides' is a lovely euphemism for what is actually Australians aiding and abetting ISIS, one of the most evil terrorist organisations in history. Aiding and abetting might have been making a packed lunch for their terrorist husband or maybe packing a few rounds of ammo. Who knows? But one thing is sure. They, at a minimum, made sure that murderers, rapists and worse had everything that they needed. If you fly to the other side of the world into a declared area to join these vile terrorists, you are as much a terrorist as they are. At that point, you have declared your allegiance to an enemy of Australia, and we do not want you back. You have thrown your lot in with the rapists, murderers, child traffickers and paedophiles. Stay there. You have forfeited your right to this great country.

Labor's response to these faint-of-heart terrorists has, sadly, made this bill necessary. Those that assist known terrorists in returning to our country must be held to account. There is never a good reason to repatriate those who have been engaged in terror. They are not fit or safe to live amongst the Australian people, and we don't want the taxpayer footing the bill for a lifetime in prison. The obvious solution is: don't bring them back. It costs anywhere from $120,000 to $200,000 a year to keep a prisoner in a maximum security facility. Each of these repatriated terrorists would cost up to $10 million if they spent the rest of their lives in prison. It is an indictment of this hopeless Labor government that this bill is necessary, but the people of Australia were not able to rely on the government's protection. Labor repeated over and over that there was no assistance being provided to these terrorists. What a crock. The idea that, if somebody does their own paperwork, the government is therefore not providing assistance is laughable.

The Labor government instead relied on third parties to do their dirty work. Save the Children Australia, Dr Jamal Rifi, a raft of lawyers—all assisting this Labor government in the deception of the Australian people. We cannot have these situations where our government are pretending to the public that they are doing one thing, while using third parties to carry out their covert objectives. It should have been obvious to Labor that these activists working to bring back terrorists from a designated area were working against the best interests of Australia. So what did they do to protect Australians from these activists? Nothing. These amendments would make it criminal for Labor to use third parties to carry out their underhanded support of these terrorists. Instead, the minister, who as we know is working very hard not to offend his electorate, will have to come out and provide explicit written, explicit permission.

Labor, at least tell us what you're up to. Australians have legitimate questions. Since we know that the Albanese Labor government had full knowledge of these repatriations and have been actively assisting them, let's have the rest of the detail. Where are they going to resettle? Which community should be put on notice that Labor is allowing radical Islamic terrorists to come to their neighbourhood? What are they going to cost the Australian public? Will these terrorists be entitled to benefits? I can't imagine these people have acquired any marketable skills while they were packing lunches for their ISIS husbands. How does the government suppose that they will support themselves and their children? Is that burden to fall on the Australian taxpayers, the very people these women renounced and fought against? Now that they have had enough, now that they know about the horrors and deprivation of this murderous ideology, they want to come back. It's too late for that.

Perhaps, instead, these ISIS supporters will be rightfully arrested and prosecuted. Under section 102.3 of the Criminal Code Act 1995, knowingly being a member of a listed terrorist organisation is punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. Is that the plan—to let these women in, charge them for being members of a terrorist organisation and, once again, have the taxpayers foot the bill? What will you be doing with the children while you have their mothers incarcerated? I can't imagine a more sure-fire way to make bitter, vengeful threats to Australian security.

Under Labor, all of these questions have been left unanswered. The Australian people have been left in the dark, with questions they are not getting answers to. We shouldn't have to watch our politicians to make sure they aren't sneaking in terrorists. We shouldn't have to take away their cloaks and daggers. It is not the sign of a functioning political system when the criminalisation of government co-conspirators is necessary to keep the country safe. Labor's priorities are completely backwards: terrorists first, Australians last. It is sad that this bill is necessary, but, to keep Australians safe from this Labor government, One Nation will support it.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Keeping Australia Safe) Bill 2026. The first duty of any government is to keep Australians safe. National security is the first and most solemn priority of any federal government, and it's the foundation upon which our way of life is built. Yet today that foundation is being eroded. It's being eroded by secrecy, contradiction and the dangerous policy of self-managed returns for those who have turned their backs on our country to join the most brutal terrorist regime of our time.

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, once told the Australian people, 'My word is my bond,' but, on the matter of national security, we are seeing the exact opposite. For months this Labor government has played a double game. The Prime Minister tells us and tells the public that ISIS sympathisers are not welcome, but at the same time we hear that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is quietly issuing passports. The Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, has told the media that his hands are tied and that he is—ironically and nonsensically—actively doing nothing. Yet we know that federal and state agencies have been meeting for months to manage the return of these individuals. So which is it? Are they unwelcome or are we paving the way for their return? The coalition believes that Australians deserve clarity on this issue, not contradictions, which is exactly why we have introduced this bill. The legislation is a clear and decisive plan to stop the trafficking of terror and restore ministerial accountability to our borders.

Let's be very clear about who it is that we're talking about here. This is the cohort of ISIS sympathisers more commonly referred to in the media as ISIS brides. They are individuals who have willingly, actively chosen to enter and remain in areas controlled by Islamic State. This wasn't a social movement; it was an apocalyptic Islamofascist regime. Security experts have warned us that radicalisation doesn't simply disappear, and, with 18,000 individuals already on the ASIO watchlist, our agencies have told us that they are stretched to their limit. Adding more high-risk returnees to this mix is highly reckless, and it puts our community at grave risk.

Over recent weeks, I have had the honour and privilege of meeting with a number of individuals who are deeply concerned about the prospect of having ISIS sympathisers returned to our shores. When Angus Taylor and I met with members of the Assyrian community in South-West Sydney, we heard the most horrific stories—stories of people being kidnapped and tortured by ISIS operatives. Their lives have moved on here in Australia, but they will bear the scars of those experiences forever. We met with members of the Yazidi community from Wagga Wagga, and we met with an extraordinarily brave young woman named Marteen, who is just 19 years old. She told us about the time she spent in ISIS captivity after being kidnapped at the age of just eight. She told us her story with tears in her eyes, unable to finish her sentences because of the trauma of those memories—the enslavement which was inflicted upon her unwillingly. Hearing her story, you couldn't help but understand why these communities are so rightly alarmed by the prospect of repatriating these so-called ISIS brides. The Assyrian and Yazidi communities have come to Australia to rebuild their lives here, but many of them are now terrified at the thought of what might happen if these people come back. These are people who, when fireworks go off, hide under their beds. They're terrified, they're traumatised, and for some reason this government wants to allow the reliving of the trauma. How can the government provide assurance, given the inconsistent messaging, that ISIS sympathisers returning to Australia won't destroy the lives that these truly beautiful Yazidi people are rebuilding in this country?

Let's be clear that the Albanese government's approach to this situation has been entirely inconsistent. Labor's current policy of self-managed returns has created a very, very dangerous loophole. Allowing third parties—NGOs or private individuals—to auspice the repatriation of people linked to terrorist organisations without any direct authorisation from the Commonwealth is dangerous. National security has been outsourced to intermediaries.

We've seen the consequences of this freelancing approach with Dr Jamal Rifi, a political ally and fundraiser of Minister Burke—such a big ally, I might add, that he attended his election night party and spray-painted Minister Burke's name onto the back of his head. This man recently travelled to Syria carrying dozens of passports for cohorts of ISIS brides—and one male prisoner, I might add. He has himself admitted in the media that he doesn't even know these women or children—he's never met them—let alone the extent of their radicalisation or the threat that they may pose to our safety. That is secondary for him. Well, it's not secondary for us. It's not secondary for the coalition. It should be our priority.

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the debate has come to an end. You'll be in continuation.