Media
|
Transcripts
October 8, 2025
MICHAEL MCLAREN: Senator James Paterson joins us on the line. Senator, good afternoon.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you, Michael.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: I just want to get a sense of the context here about this cohort in question. Let me ask you this. Prior to making their way to Lebanon, we believe was sort of the middle house as it were, were they detained in a camp in Syria?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, I would love to be able to answer that question, but because the government has disclosed nothing at all about this cohort, we are left to speculate exactly who these people are, exactly what their involvement with Islamic State was, and exactly what threat they might pose to Australians now that they have returned home. And frankly, it's not good enough. The government must reassure Australians that they are on top of this issue, and based on their handling of this issue so far, I have no confidence that they are.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: Okay, so we don't know, and that's fair enough, that's not a failing of you, that's because the government haven't been transparent. Let's assume then that they were in one of these camps in Syria. My understanding is they're guarded by Kurdish forces; I don't think it's just an open-door policy in these places. How might they have left that camp in Syria and got to Lebanon?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, there's speculation in media reporting that they may have paid the equivalent of people smugglers to smuggle them out of the camps and to get to Lebanon, from which they obtained Australian documentation, including citizenship by descent for their children, passports for all of them, and were allowed to board a flight home. Now this is important because obviously you can't enter Australia without those documents, and it does in my view constitute the assistance that this government has provided them to return home, even though the government has said every step of the way, they haven't provided any assistance for any ISIS brides or their children to come home.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: As I said, I think we saw a masterclass in semantics yesterday by Senator Wong. I mean, you made that point in estimates yesterday about assistance, what constitutes, what defines assistance. I mean, without whipping out a dictionary, I think most people have a pretty good understanding of what would be government assistance in this circumstance, and yet we didn't really get an answer yesterday from Senator Wong on that.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: None whatsoever, and I think it shows contempt for the Australian people and the public who deserve answers to these questions. And it's because the government is uncomfortable about this - they've got something to hide. We don't know yet what that is, but clearly the Prime Minister has misled the Parliament when he said those reports were inaccurate. It turns out that those reports initially by Liam Mendes and The Australian were very accurate, and the Prime Minister should have been upfront and honest when he was asked about it.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: OK, I mean, the point that Senator Wong made yesterday, eventually on this issue of assistance and what it means in this context, seemed to be something like this, saying, well look, in the past, and she gave the example of 2022, and I'll come to that in just a moment with you, a cohort that came in 2022 to Australia, the government was involved every step of the way and repatriated individuals from camps, whereas what she seemed to be saying yesterday to you was that that level of assistance wasn't forthcoming this time, or so it led to believe, or be told, but it just beggars belief, does it not Senator Paterson, that no government assistance would in any way have been involved for people to leave a camp in Syria and get to Australia.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, exactly right, Michael, and even if it is true that the government wasn't on the ground facilitating the repatriation, what they're now trying to imply is they're not responsible for these people coming home and therefore shouldn't be blamed if anything goes wrong. But the truth is they did have options available to prevent the return of these people to Australia should they wish. There's something called a temporary exclusion order, which the Minister for Home Affairs can apply for, which prevents an Australian citizen from returning to our country if they have associated with a terrorist organisation while offshore. Now, ISIS and an ISIS bride are the definition of someone who's associated with the terrorist organisation, and this is not just any terrorist organisation, but one of the most depraved and reprehensible we've seen in decades.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: On the other issue that you did raise, and you were right to do this, that is why no official assistance was allegedly offered on this occasion, but in 2022, the government, it was the Albanese government, assisted the repatriation, I believe, of four adults and 13 children, much to the concern, of course, of parts of the Australian community and indeed to you at the time. The then Home Affairs Minister, Clare O'Neil, we're going back to 2022, She went on the media to justify it at the time and she made the point. That it would be the right thing to do to bring these people back to Australia. She basically said words to the effect, look, we could leave them there to be brainwashed, or we could bring them back here and try to turn them into good Western citizens again and all this sort of stuff. So that was the government justification for actively intervening only three years ago. They now say they had no intention, in fact did not actively intervene in the repatriation of this cohort. You tried to get to the bottom of why, in 2022, they got involved and why, allegedly, now they have not. There was no answer to that, was there?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: No exactly not, and it's rare for me to praise Clare O'Neil for her handling of the Home Affairs portfolio but I give her credit for this: at least she was upfront and honest. She put out a media release saying these are the people that are coming home, these are the circumstances in which they're coming home. This is what we're going to do about it when they get here to monitor them. None of that has happened this time under Tony Burke as Home Affairs Minister. In fact he's been missing in action. He hasn't fronted up to the media, he hasn't fronted up to the Parliament, no explanation has been offered.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: He occasionally he fronts up to Sydney Airport though.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: That's right, indeed, exactly. He provides the red carpet at Sydney Airport for people coming out of Gaza, but he won't provide transparency to the Australian people about people coming out of Syria, and they deserve to know.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: What about this thing about transparency because, of course, you know, there are always going to be national security concerns when you're dealing with people that may have links to ISIS, you understand that, I understand that, but the government, Anthony Albanese, particularly as the Prime Minister, made a big song and dance when he came to power three years ago, that this would be a very transparent government, the disinfecting power of daylight was going to shine its rays into every crevice and nook and cranny and corner of government. It doesn't seem to have lasted long?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: No, I mean independent bodies have found that this government is the least transparent government we've had in decades in terms of their response to Senate questions on notice, in terms their response FOIs. I mean this is the government that's slashed the opposition staffing to limit scrutiny. Anthony Albanese hates scrutiny, he's incredibly sensitive to it and I think it's because he knows deep down, that his poor performance wouldn't stand up to the full sunlight of scrutiny, whether it's on the economy or whether it is on national security.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: We've seen a breakdown of social cohesion the last two years, in particular, following October 7. A lack of transparency on a matter like this surely doesn't help bring Australians together.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Exactly right, I mean I particularly think today of the persecuted Middle Eastern Christians like Assyrian Christians, I think of the Yazidis and other minorities for whom we offered a home after the rise and fall of Islamic State and now are fearful that their captors, their jailers, the people that facilitated their torture and abuse have returned to this country. And imagine how that makes them feel and imagine and how it makes them feel that their own government won't tell them anything about where they are, how they're being monitored, whether they can be charged, the circumstances with which they came home. I mean, it's deeply unsatisfying.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: Let alone how many of them there are. Just finally, okay, if indeed these women are Australian citizens and if their offspring are entitled to Australian citizenship, do you believe they have the right to return to Australia?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I believe that we should use the full suite of powers available to the federal government to protect Australians and that includes temporary exclusion orders to keep people offshore, that includes charging them with terrorist offences when they come home, that includes using control orders to control their movements when they're in Australia if they can't immediately be charged. And so at least then the public could have some confidence that the government's doing everything they can to protect them. Right now, they have no reason to believe that's the case.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: We don't know, in other words, that the government are enacting those levers?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I wish I could say that I was confident that they are, but there's no evidence that they have, and their unwillingness to answer questions about it suggests that they probably haven't.
MICHAEL MCLAREN: I know you're going to keep at it, and we'll keep speaking with you. Thank you for your time.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Thanks, Michael.
ENDS