JENI O’DOWD: ISIS brides betrayed everything Australia stands for and government must hold them to account

Liberal Senator James Paterson is only 37, but he sounds like the only adult in the room. In a speech in Sydney on Tuesday evening, the shadow finance minister told his colleagues to stop the “apology tour”, end the “mass public therapy session” and get serious about holding the Government to account.

He’s right. And not just about the Liberal Party. Accountability shouldn’t be a partisan idea. It used to be baked into the system. Now, it’s treated like an optional extra.

Take the return of the so-called ISIS brides. Since this was raised in Parliament last week, we’ve heard nothing more apart from a few television interviews.

No answers. No detail. Twenty years ago, newsrooms would’ve chased every thread: who approved the travel, who signed off the passports, what risks were weighed and dismissed, and most importantly, where these women are now living.

But with depleted budgets and hollowed-out newsrooms, the questions vanish. The story fades. And the Government coasts on silence.

Paterson’s call for unity and accountability is spot on, and nowhere is that clearer than in the silence surrounding one of the most unsettling stories of the year.

Years ago, the ISIS brides walked away from Australia, pledging allegiance to a barbaric movement that beheads innocent people and is at war with everything we stand for.

Now they have quietly slipped back into Australia as though nothing ever happened. And even worse, more are expected to come.

Some argue their passports should have been cancelled and never reinstated. Their citizenship should have been revoked. If you join an enemy force, you don’t get re-entry with welfare benefits, right? Isn’t that basic logic?

The four children who just returned were not born here. They were born in Syria. Home Affairs has confirmed that at least two were granted Australian citizenship by descent, following the processing of their applications after security checks in Lebanon.

What message does that send? That the treacherous choices of their parents count for nothing?

If an employee trashed the company he worked for and joined a rival that vowed to take it down, would HR rush to rehire him? Hardly.

And if a kid’s expelled from school, would they later be welcomed back with open arms? Not a chance.

So why are the rules for these women, the wives of men who joined ISIS in Syria, suddenly different from the rest of us?

And even more galling, the AFP Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt told Senate estimates last week that more women would return, refusing to say exactly how many more.

The Albanese Government, short on detail, says it has played no part in the return of the ISIS brides.

The Prime Minister denied that the Government assisted the group’s return and said Australian citizens have a right to re-enter. Fine. But officials and police have acknowledged co-ordination around re-entry, and monitoring is underway. You cannot claim distance while running the process in the background.

Who cleared the travel, processed the passports after DNA tests and security checks in Beirut, and waved them through the gate?

Senior AFP officials told estimates they were aware of the group’s planned arrival from early June and briefed Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke back then, and again late September.

That is not nothing. At a minimum, it means agencies knew, checks were underway and someone approved re-entry.

There were lawful options to stop the women from returning. Temporary exclusion orders exist to delay a return where thresholds are met. If the test was not met, say so plainly and explain why. If it was, explain why the order was not sought. Australians can handle nuance. They do not tolerate fog.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the women willingly left our shores to join a death cult.

“More importantly, where are these individuals?” she asked Nat Barr on Seven’s Sunrise. “And are they, with the same intent in mind, living within those communities? We need honesty.”

Ley also argued that something appears to have been done to support the repatriation and questioned the Government’s claim of zero involvement.

But she would be far more credible if she spelt out exactly what the Opposition would do in government, not just what it wants the Government to explain.

That means stating when they’d use temporary exclusion orders, what reporting they’d require on placements and costs, the deradicalisation supports for children and how AFP monitoring would be resourced and reviewed.

It’s the kind of clarity Paterson was talking about: the courage to deal in facts, not fog.

This is the type of issue the Opposition needs to latch onto, tell us what they’d do, how they’d do it and prove they’re more than just a protest party against Labor.