JENI O’DOWD: Compassion for ISIS kids must be limited by common sense

Compassion is a word used when we want to sound humane, measured and decent. But is compassion a single, uniform feeling?

The Albanese Government says it has compassion for the 23 children of ISIS brides reportedly on their way back to Australia. Some were born overseas and have never set foot in our country.

They haven’t gone through our school system, nor have they learnt Australian history. They have never gone to a footy match, never enjoyed a backyard barbecue and have never spent a summer day at the beach like most of us.

Many were born into a war zone and grew up in dusty, overcrowded camps in Syria. Exactly how many is not publicly known.

Who would wish that on a child? I certainly don’t. But I can’t pretend their environment does not matter.

Others were born here and taken to live in Syria by their parents, who pledged allegiance to a terrorist group that not only fights against everything we stand for but also glorifies brutality.

Of course, none of this is the children’s fault. But I believe compassion is not infinite and it must start at home.

We have seen footage from the Al-Hawl camp in Syria where children are throwing stones at a journalist, with others making throat-slitting gestures. Some reports say children in other camps make beheading signs and chant support for ISIS.

Normal childhood behaviour? I don’t think so.

These are kids raised in chaos, surrounded by ideology most of us cannot begin to comprehend. And that trauma will not just disappear when their plane lands in Sydney or Melbourne, and they start living in a red-brick suburban home.

Significantly, we do not know what these children have absorbed and what sits beneath the surface.

Maybe the risk is tiny. Maybe it is not. But are we prepared to accept that risk?

My compassion is with the victims of ISIS-inspired terrorism and the families shattered by violence at Bondi in December. It is with the family of 10-year-old Matilda and the other 15 people killed, and the 40 people injured.

We are not immune to Islamist extremism. Over the past decade, authorities have stopped many ISIS-inspired plots and attacks, which shows the threat is very real.

And I believe a nation’s first responsibility is to the safety of its citizens.

Nine Newspapers reported that the women would accept jail if it meant their children could live in Australia. Of course they would. Even a prison cell funded by Australian taxpayers must look like salvation compared to a Syrian camp.

But the question is not what they want. It is what Australia should accept.

Under international law, Australia cannot strip a person of citizenship if it would leave them stateless, but it does have exclusion orders to manage risk.

Which brings me back to the meaning of compassion. Anthony Albanese said the Government has compassion for the children involved when he ruled out assisting with their return.

Greens home affairs spokesman David Shoebridge argued the Government should show “an ounce of humanity and care and compassion” towards the children stranded in Syrian camps.

Sydney doctor Jamal Rifi, who has been advocating for their repatriation, publicly urged the Government to be “compassionate” and to “look into their conscience” when considering the fate of the 23 children.

Compassion is being positioned as the moral high ground. If you question repatriation, you are hard-hearted and people say you lack humanity.

Yet it is entirely possible to feel sorrow for children born into chaos and still believe that a nation’s first duty is to protect its own.

It seems the new Opposition Leader, Angus Taylor, is one of the few politicians to explicitly raise the question of risk from these children, telling Sharri Markson on Sky News there is no evidence that children of ISIS brides are not radicalised.

“The next piece of the tragedy is that there’s a real risk that many of them have been radicalised,” he said.

He is not wrong to say it is something we should be concerned about. And his beliefs are starting to be reflected in the latest polls, showing, finally, a slow uplift for the Coalition.

I am not heartless. And maybe you are more compassionate than I am. But surely we expect the Government to put the safety and the values of its citizens first.

If compassion is extended without limit and without regard for consequences, it stops being a virtue. It becomes a liability.