Anthony Albanese is hiding his government’s involvement to return the third group of so-called “jihadi brides” to Australia, apparently before Christmas.
These are women who are currently in refugee camps in northern Syria, who travelled to that region to support the extremist and brutal Islamic State. They married and then they had children.
Speaking in parliament on Thursday, the Prime Minister was tight-lipped. In question time, he said: “The Australian government is not providing assistance to this cohort.”
Something is missing in the Prime Minister’s denial. Speaking in the NSW parliament’s estimates committee hearings on Thursday, Dave Hudson, Deputy Commissioner of the NSW Police, said he was in close discussion with the Australian Federal Police about the return of the jihadi brides.
Hudson said: “We’re still working through this issue with the commonwealth.”
He made the rather curious comment that “the AFP don’t play a significant role as they have previously. We will. We will have to work that out.”
Hudson has a deserved reputation for being direct. He has little patience for political obfuscation. I’ve had discussions with him in the past on counter-terrorism and I respect his judgment.
As a senior Defence Department official, I was involved in the planning required to bring Afghan translators to Australia after the Australian Defence Force withdrew from southern Afghanistan.
I know from decades in Defence that such operations generate a mountain of ministerial submissions, ASIO threat assessments and visa approvals. For Albanese to claim “no assistance” is plainly false.
There will have been a significant amount of Australian consular work to engage with the jihadi brides, to provide them with passports and visas, to make security assessments and to determine how they will move from a refugee camp to locations where flights can be taken to Australia.
Hudson’s comment suggests that the federal government is trying to hand over more responsibility for managing these individuals to the NSW government once the jihadis are in-country.
NSW will take the responsibility to accommodate these people, to manage health and education requirements, and to make assessments about the need for security given the likely continuation of extremist views.
The Australian federal system will also be involved in providing social security payments, Medicare, NDIS and the numerous other touchpoints between modern government and Australian citizens.
Here I suggest some questions that should be asked of the federal government to force a more honest accounting of their involvement in this process.
First, there are issues around decision making. What role has the national security committee of cabinet played? My expectation is that the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Tony Burke, would have taken a paper to the NSC discussing options for the repatriation.
Recalling the botch-up of providing visas to individuals fleeing Gaza, the federal government will surely be trying to get this aspect of the repatriation done correctly.
Next there will be a significant paper flow from departments to ministers seeking approval for specific courses of action, including from ASIO to the Attorney-General, paperwork from DFAT to the Foreign Minister, and overall assessments of the strategy provided to the Prime Minister from his department.
Even under the government’s new rules, all of this material will be requested under Freedom of Information legislation. It’s been some years since Albanese extolled the virtues of open government. He would be smart to be more open about this process now.
Then there are questions around the allocation of state and federal responsibilities.
Albanese should explain what contact he has had with the NSW government. Did he pick up the phone to Premier Chris Minns? The Premier has to make the public case that this group should be welcomed, most likely into western Sydney.
If the federal government is handing more responsibility over to the NSW government, that will require a negotiation between Albanese, Tony Burke, and counterpart ministers in health and education. NSW will not do this cost free.
Next, there are the operational risks and costs involved in moving and resettling the jihadis.
As part of this planning, what engagement has the government had with allies? The problem of repatriating Islamist extremists from refugee camps is being faced by the United Kingdom, France, the United States and other countries. Has Australia sought advice from counterparts involved in the war against the Islamic State?
How is the jihadi group going to be moved from Syria? Is the government engaging with private sector security groups, some of which are known to have exfiltrated individuals from that country? This is not as simple as just putting the jihadis on a plane home.
Who’s paying and how much will the exercise cost? It’s clear that there will be millions of dollars of expenses involved in moving and resettling this group. What estimate has the government made of these costs?
The taxpayer always carries the cost. Like any significant project, it should start with an estimate and clear accounting.
Finally, there are questions around risk, justice, security monitoring and deradicalisation.
The government should advise Australians about the risk that they are importing into our community. What is the assessed remaining threat?
There is currently a much larger cohort of radicalised individuals in Australia which has developed as a result of the government’s toleration of the pro-Palestinian movement. Has the government sought assurances from the jihadi brides that they will not participate in protest activity?
What will be the security monitoring arrangements? 24/7 surveillance and monitoring is, frankly, something that exists only in the movies. The cost and demand on personnel is so great that it is practically impossible to provide that level of monitoring other than for the most immediate and highest risk cases.
Will any of the group face criminal charges for their actions in the Middle East? Who makes that assessment? Let’s not forget that Australia was in military combat against the Islamic State just a few years ago.
It’s likely that members of the jihadi group will undertake deradicalisation programs, including perhaps while serving criminal sentences.
The reality is that these have tended not to be successful in Western countries. We should know what state and federal governments are planning.
The government should not try to evade its responsibility to think its way through these issues. Why is Albanese so evasive? A braver approach would be for the Prime Minister to make a statement in parliament explaining why the government is repatriating the jihadi brides.
This is not going to be a popular measure, but it can be explained and there is some justification in wanting to provide a better life, particularly for the children.
A courageous government and an articulate prime minister might choose to explain these realities rather than hide from them. The government could choose to give a classified brief to the opposition, which might take some political sting from the issue.
Just as with the visas issued to 3000 Gazans, Albanese’s approach of saying little and toughing things out doesn’t work well. The real test here is whether the Prime Minister has the capacity to learn from past mistakes, to take the public into his confidence, and to explain his policy in believable terms.
This article originally appeared in the Weekend Australian of 06-07 September 2025.