Government warns of arrest as Coalition pushes to block “terrorist sympathisers”
ISIS families trying to return to Australia have been warned they could be arrested when they arrive, as the coalition calls on Labor to find a way to thwart “terrorist sympathisers”.
News that a group of four women and nine children had arrived in Damascus and hoped to fly to Australia within a few days increased the urgency of the question of how the group should be treated upon their return.
Their plans to fly to Australia, which have not yet been confirmed and could be blocked by authorities in Syria or a country they stop by, have become a flashpoint in a wider debate over immigration and extremism. December’s Bondi massacre and the rise of One Nation’s anti-immigration campaign led to further increased attention on ISIS families, with Labor toughening its language against any return.
“These are Australian citizens and the government is not helping them return home,” Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong told reporters in Adelaide on Monday.
“And if they return home, they will face the full force of the law.”
The majority of Australians returning from the Caliphate did not face serious charges when they arrived in Australia. A woman named Mariam Raad was accused of voluntarily joining her husband to travel to terrorist-controlled Syria in 2023. He pleaded guilty and escaped from prison.
The government has previously stated that members of the group deemed to pose a security risk will be monitored in the community.
Ministers have insisted for months that authorities are not helping the group return, trying to balance Australians’ legal right to return home with low levels of public support for people who join the ISIS movement.
Government agencies provided passports to group members; the government argued that they were legally obligated to do so because they were citizens. It was reported that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s harsh statements to the press in February this year, saying that he did not sympathize with people who “made their beds” and chose ISIS, were effective in the decision of Syrian authorities to prevent women and children from leaving the camp.
“The Australian government is not and will not repatriate people from Syria,” a federal government spokesman said on Monday. “Our security agencies have been and continue to monitor the situation in Syria to ensure they are prepared for Australians wishing to return.”
But the Coalition, trying to win back voters who have flocked to One Nation since the last election, turned to Labor.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said the Coalition wanted answers about more than a dozen ISIS-linked Australians who may try to track the current group as it reaches Damascus.
“These are terrorist sympathizers who have chosen to leave our country,” frontman Aaron Violi said on Sky News, arguing that Home Secretary Tony Burke should make greater use of special powers that allow the government to block certain people.
Burke became a target of opposition due to his relationship with a leading supporter of the ISIS families. In February, he said he had blocked a woman on the advice of security agencies under an order aimed at protecting Australians from national security risks.
Labor MP Jerome Laxale told Sky the opposition was playing politics and undermining national security.
Liberal senator Maria Kovacic, a leading moderate, said she “greatly empathizes” with children forced into a bad situation but said society deserves to know how risky it is to bring them home.
“The government will say that it is a matter of how the citizens return. I also think that the government should be aware of this situation and that it is a significant problem that they are not,” he said.
“We don’t know if any of them will be charged with a crime if they actually committed these crimes.”
Duniam and the Coalition released a policy in February that would make it illegal for people to return from a terrorism hotspot without government permission; Legal experts question whether the plan is feasible.
Greens senator David Shoebridge, who visited the Al-Roj camp last year, lent his support to the effort to bring the group home.
“[The children] “They had no choice but to go to Syria to have their childhood ruined like this,” he said last month.
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Paul Sakkal is the Chief Political Correspondent. He has previously covered Victorian politics and won the Walkley award as well as the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year award. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.Connect with: X or email.
Mostafa Rachwani is a Parramatta reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously a Community Affairs correspondent for Guardian Australia.Connect via email.
