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Burke calls out ‘silly hypocrisy’ from Coalition over IS-linked families
Josh Taylor
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, told ABC’s 7.30 program last night that the Coalition pressure to prevent the 34 Australian wives and children of IS fighters killed or captured in Syria from returning to Australia was “silly hypocrisy”.
He said if the Coalition wants the group excluded from Australia permanently, “they should look at the laws they voted for, they put in place when they were in government.”
There’s a lot of very silly deeply hypocritical claims coming from the opposition today.
Burke said there were repatriations from Syria under the Morrison government, and also cases where people returned themselves to Australia.
We had 40 people under the Coalition do self-managed returns, that didn’t just include women and children, it included fighters. It included men who had gone there to fight. Now, they were among the returns who came back.
The fact that people with Australian passports have returned from those sorts of situations is not new. It happened under them.
Yesterday the government announced that one of the group would be banned from entering Australia for two years.
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The New Zealand foreign minister Winston Peters says he is “aghast” at the “inexcusable” turmoil in Australian political ranks which he attributes to “ego”.
Peters is in his third stint as New Zealand’s top diplomat, having served in the governments of Helen Clark, Jacinda Ardern and, currently, Christopher Luxon.
Asked of his ties to newly-elected opposition leader Angus Taylor, the 80-year-old instead offered a critique of recent leadership battles in Australian politics.
“Can I just say, as an outsider, I’m aghast,” he told Australian Associated Press in Wellington.
The years of stability, first of Hawke and then Howard, those years of civility have been very critical for Australia’s success.
The churn now really is inexcusable, and the churn both in the Labor and the Liberal Party, has been massive.
In the end, you’ve got to stand back and say to those parties ... what is going on with you when you think that personal ego is the most important thing to elevation?
Peters said the task of ensuring strong relations wasn’t helped by political turnover.
“It makes your job harder because you keep on getting new leaders,” he said, before joking he may not need to begin fresh relationship-building with Liberal foreign affairs spokesman Ted O’Brien.
“The way the polls are going, maybe not,” he said.
Josh Taylor
Burke revealed that the decision to make a temporary exclusion order against one woman on Monday - who he revealed came to Australia and became a citizen under the Howard government and went to Syria under the Abbott government - was made after reports of the group leaving the camp and preparing to return to Australia had surfaced.
Burke said it would not have made sense to issue the order earlier because it is set for two years.
Burke said if the children are able to return to Australia, they would face a similar situation to those who returned under the Morrison government, but he said the parents “may well decide to never come back” because they would “face the full force of the law” for those who are found to have committed crimes.
Burke said he had a different view on the situation to Jamal Rifi - who reports claim is assisting the group - and said the prime minister’s response on the issue had not changed since before the Bondi terror attack.
Burke calls out ‘silly hypocrisy’ from Coalition over IS-linked families
Josh Taylor
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, told ABC’s 7.30 program last night that the Coalition pressure to prevent the 34 Australian wives and children of IS fighters killed or captured in Syria from returning to Australia was “silly hypocrisy”.
He said if the Coalition wants the group excluded from Australia permanently, “they should look at the laws they voted for, they put in place when they were in government.”
There’s a lot of very silly deeply hypocritical claims coming from the opposition today.
Burke said there were repatriations from Syria under the Morrison government, and also cases where people returned themselves to Australia.
We had 40 people under the Coalition do self-managed returns, that didn’t just include women and children, it included fighters. It included men who had gone there to fight. Now, they were among the returns who came back.
The fact that people with Australian passports have returned from those sorts of situations is not new. It happened under them.
Yesterday the government announced that one of the group would be banned from entering Australia for two years.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser with the main action.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, told the ABC’s 7.30 program last night that the Coalition pressure to prevent all the 34 Australian wives and children of IS fighters killed or captured in Syria from returning to Australia was “silly hypocrisy”. More coming up.
New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister has made some pointed comments about Australian politics, saying he’s “aghast” at the rapid change of leadership in the major parties and reckons “ego” is behind it.
Australia’s unemployment is widely tipped to be on the rise once again after a surprise fall. The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the first lot of labour force figures of 2026 today, with a slight rise to 4.2% for January expected.
