Anthony Albanese has voiced compassion for the 23 Australian children detained in Syria, but remained defiant against their desperate pleas to return home.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has voiced compassion for the 23 Australian children detained in Syria, but remained defiant against their desperate pleas to return home.
The 11 women, dubbed the ISIS brides, and their 23 children are hoping to return to Australia after a false start earlier this month, which saw them turned back to the Roj detention camp on a technicality.
One of the children, aged just nine years old, has asked the Australian government to "please save us".
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"I was very upset. I was heartbreaking. I was crying out. I told my mum, I don't want to go back to the prison. I want to go home," she said in a video shared by The Sydney Morning Herald today.
The cohort's return has been a topic of fierce debate after the government admitted they held Australian passports, with politicians arguing whether they pose a national security threat.
Albanese, who has insisted that "they made their bed, they have to lie in it", has this morning repeated his uncompromising stance.
"We've said that what we aren't doing is providing repatriation of these people," he told reporters.
"We've said that we have compassion for the children involved, but that others who chose to travel to that area have made those decisions in life.
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"And that was a decision that was certainly contrary to not just Australian advice, but contrary to Australia's national interest."
Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie was less fazed by the children's pleas, saying "we do not want these women or their children back here at home".
"These women left a safe, prosperous, free country like ours to go fight in a war and support a war effort that was going to set up the Islamic State and raise these Australian children under Sharia law," she told Today.
"They lost that war and now we're seeing, I think, the outcome of that."
The 34 Australians have been held at the Roj detention camp for almost seven years since the fall of the so-called caliphate in Syria due to their alleged ties to Islamic State fighters.
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Earlier this month, they were turned back on an unspecified technicality after leaving for the airport in Damascus.
Later, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke admitted the group had Australian passports.
Burke said he was unable to legally deny passports or issue temporary exclusion orders to all but one woman who has been banned from returning to Australia.
NSW Premier Chris Minns on Monday revealed he has been speaking with the federal government about the cohort's potential return since late last year, as one-third are expected to resettle in the state.
"I worry about where these children will be in the years ahead, and I worry about what the consequences of doing nothing for them if they did return to Australia would be," he said.
The remaining two-thirds are expected to return to Victoria. Premier Jacinta Allan has not commented on the matter.
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Federal Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will introduce legislation into parliament to criminalise anyone helping ISIS-linked families return to Australia.
"Labor needs to be upfront with the Australian people about what is going on here. But most of all, Labor needs to support this legislation, which will help to protect Australians and protect our way of life," he said earlier this week.
Meanwhile, the Greens and organisations like Save the Children Australia are calling for the government to help the children return safely, adding that they are not responsible for the actions of their parents.
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