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February 23, 2026 — 6:00pm
The charity trying to extract families from Syria has blasted a Coalition bid to make it illegal to help them back to Australia, as Labor MPs grumble about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s uncompromising stance in the debate over so-called ISIS brides.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor spent the first week of his tenure talking about the group in Syria to make his case that Australia must “shut the door”, a phrase he has used repeatedly, to those who do not share democratic values.
About a third of the 34 people would be expected to settle in NSW should they find a way back into the country, NSW Premier Chris Minns said on Monday as he denounced the actions of anyone who willingly left Australia to join a “horrible, malevolent organisation”.
The stoush is occurring against the backdrop of a debate over migration and extremism after the allegedly ISIS-inspired massacre at Bondi and as anti-immigration party One Nation rises in the polls.
On Monday, Taylor put forward a proposed law to make it illegal for groups to go to Syria and help the women and children escape camps, secure passports, cross the border and board planes.
The government has not given proactive support for the group to come home, except for providing passports. But ministers have made the point that the government cannot stop them from returning home, as is their right as citizens, if advocates find a way to get them out of dangerous camps and onto planes.
Save the Children chief executive Mat Tinkler, whose charity has worked with Australians who travelled to the former caliphate, said they were complying with Australian law.
“In the case of innocent children stranded in camps in north-eastern Syria our role has been twofold: providing them with lifesaving humanitarian relief and advocating for national governments to repatriate their citizens,” he said.
“While we have yet to see the details of this proposal, any attempt to criminalise advocacy for Australian children stranded overseas would be extraordinary.”
The 34 women and children in question are in the al-Roj camp in north-east Syria. The government repatriated another group in 2022 and the Morrison government brought back orphaned children.
However, the government says its security agencies have determined the current group is more risky because some of the adult women hold dangerous views that risk another terror attack occurring in Australia should they arrive. An unknown proportion of the group claimed to be coerced into travelling to Syria last decade, while some were children at the time, making their return far less risky, if at all.
Opposition home affairs minister Jonno Duniam acknowledged the Coalition’s proposed laws to make it illegal to repatriate ISIS families could be knocked out by the High Court. But, Duniam added on Monday, “the constitutional risk or legal risk is not a reason to do nothing.”
“If that’s the approach the Albanese government want to take when it comes to national security, then they can explain why they choose to do nothing to strengthen laws,” Duniam said in Brisbane.
“If those who support Isis brides … want to take these laws to court should they pass, then go for gold.”
Opinions in the Labor caucus are mixed on how Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke have been handling the possible repatriation. The prime minister used firm language last week, saying he had “contempt for their parents who have put these children in that situation”.
Two Labor MPs said they were disappointed that Albanese had not expressed more sympathy with the plight of the children. One of them, who like all MPs in this story sought anonymity to be candid, said Labor should explore the option of sending officials to the camps to repatriate the children alone.
“There is a security risk,” one MP said, “but we are talking about children here. The risk can be mitigated, they are Australian citizens, and we should let them come home.”
Another MP said the Albanese government’s position had not shifted since a 2022 court case when it fought Save the Children’s bid to repatriate the cohort of 34. “Bondi has not changed this,” the MP said.
A fourth MP held the same view, emphasising that the group in question included some very radical women. The likely tens of millions of dollars and human counter-terrorism resources needed to monitor the group for years once in Australia should not be underestimated, the MP said, especially given the growing number of radical actors in the neo-Nazi far-right and Muslim fringes.
Labor MP Jerome Laxale attacked the Coalition’s proposal on Sky News on Monday, saying Taylor could not answer whether “we really want to lock up priests and nuns from Save the Children”.
UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Professor Ben Saul questioned the feasibility of the Coalition’s proposal because citizens have a right to return home.
“If that conduct is lawful, it’s very hard to see why you would make it a crime to assist somebody to exercise a lawful right. I mean, that just seems to make no sense at all,” he said.
“It’s hugely problematic, for example, if you’re criminalising lawyers for providing assistance to clients to exercise their lawful rights as citizens,” he said.
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