Don't play politics with national security

Monday 23 February 2026

Christopher Dore

The West Australian

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Uncertainty swirls around the travel arrangements and rights of 11 so-called ISIS brides and their children who want to leave a refugee camp in Syria — and yet our leaders are doing little to help. 

In terms of being unhelpful towards the ISIS brides, Anthony Albanese has made a salient point: “If you make your bed, you lie in it”. 

But the uncertainly reverberating throughout Australia over the pending return of the women and children is being complicated — if not driven — by the unhelpfulness of our politicians’ blame games. 

The continuing public commentary on Sunday is evidence that Anthony Albanese’s government may have perfected the art of deflection, but it should not be playing politics with national security. 

The Prime Minister told Sky News on Sunday that when his predecessor Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party were in power, a bigger number — which included actual fighters, not just their wives and children — had been allowed back to Australia from Syria. 

“Bear this in mind, when the former government was in office, 40 people returned to Australia, literally fighters, not just brides or wives of fighters, but fighters returned to Australia during that period,” he claimed. 

That had shadow defence minister James Paterson snapping back — first to query the truth of the statement; and second, to point out it was that influx that brought about new laws to stop the same thing recurring. 

In recent days, Kurdish authorities have been adamant that the Albanese Government considered the 11 families “terrorists” and that it had in writing that Australia did not want them repatriated. 

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, talking about the brides on the ABC’s Insiders program, then insisted that the women were not necessarily all alike in their ideology. 

“I can give the complete confidence to the Australian community: we know the different individuals,” he said. 

“We know the state of mind and the effective ideology of different individuals.” 

Reassuring? Perhaps. Confused about who these women really are? Absolutely. 

Then like his leader, Mr Burke couldn’t help but point the finger at past Liberal governments for creating the situation. He noted that the one woman currently barred from returning received her citizenship when John Howard was PM, and departed for Syria while Tony Abbott was in office. Assigning historical blame is a neat political trick, but it does not fix the immediate threat. 

Currently, the Government is hiding behind the high legal thresholds of the Passports Act. Senator Paterson has offered a glaringly obvious solution: if the current law isn't strong enough to deny them passports, then the Parliament needs to work together to strengthen the law. 

More than ever before, Australians fear a repeat of terror on our shores and are demanding the Government do everything possible to ensure any risk is as low as possible. 

Co-operation in Parliament is a crucial element of this.

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