Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027
Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (19:09): One of the greatest and most important obligations of any federal government—in fact, any government—is to ensure the protection of its citizens, and the Department of Home Affairs is principal, as is the Minister for Home Affairs, to that responsibility. So this evening I want to talk primarily about the return of the so-called ISIS brides and I want to ask the minister a series of questions.
Who arranged the health checks for the Sydney arrivals on 26 May, and was the purpose to keep the arrivals away from waiting media? Why did those arrivals receive what could essentially be described as a rockstar arrival process? Why was the national counterterrorism coordinator unaware of those arrangements if they related to a cohort of national security concern?
Were similar arrangements offered to the Melbourne arrivals or to any previous returned ISIS bride cohorts? Where did the 26 May arrivals go after landing in Sydney and Melbourne? Why could the Home Affairs secretary not answer that question at estimates?
What monitoring, reporting or control arrangements are now in place for each member of the latest cohort? Were passport approvals, identity checks, consular engagement or liaison with foreign authorities provided in relation to the return of the ISIS brides in 2022, 2025 and 2026—yes or no? No-one believes this government—we could put a full stop there—when they say that they did not provide any assistance to the return of these ISIS brides.
It is inconceivable that you could bring these cohorts from Syria, from a refugee camp, without any assistance from this federal government, yet that is what they continue to portray to the Australian people. It is a fiction. It is a fib.
It is a fabrication—one of the many that this government continues to make and expects Australians to believe. How much taxpayer funding has been allocated already and how much will be allocated in the future to support ISIS brides and their children? This is a reasonable question to ask.
These are people who decided to leave Australia and fight with a group of terrorists that were willing to fight and kill Australians. They made that decision. We can all feel a high degree of sympathy for the kids, but the women and men that left this country to do that have to face the consequences of their very poor decisions.
Why is it that of all of the ISIS brides this government has only once used a temporary exclusion order? Despite the fact that a number of the returnees were charged with some very serious criminal offences, why did this government not form the view that a temporary exclusion order should've been placed on these people who were returning to this country? A temporary exclusion order is not a permanent ban.
It simply enables the government to control these people's return in a much more systematic and controlled way so that law enforcement agencies and our intelligence agencies can then manage their return. Why did this government not provide or institute temporary exclusion orders on these other individuals? I'd really like an answer to that question.
Finally, Minister, I'm very keen to understand—this perhaps may have been dealt with in estimates, and I may have missed it—why was Ben Roberts-Smith humiliated? He was filmed effectively being dragged off the plane and away from his family while these ISIS brides effectively received the gold treatment from this government. (Time expired)