Coalition pile on pressure for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to explain secret ISIS brides meeting

The Home Affairs Minister has copped a ‘please explain’ after documents revealed he had a secret meeting with advocates urging Australia to repatriate ISIS brides in June.

Australian women and children at al-Roj camp in northeastern Syria. Picture: Ellen Whinnett

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is under increasing pressure to explain secret talks with advocates calling for the repatriation of a six-person ISIS Brides cohort, which resulted in him asking a public servant to leave the room during the meeting.

Heavily redacted handwritten notes detailing the June meeting comes after Anthony Albanese denied any government involvement in the operation to return the cohort.

However the Australian Federal Police has previously confirmed the group was being monitored by authorities as part of an ongoing operation.

Documents released by the Senate showed Mr Burke thanking the group for not speaking to media, and stating that the “government doesn’t want to be perceived to have been paying to have them smuggled out”.

In attendance were advocates from Save the Children, Department of Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster and campaigner Kamalle Dabboussy, whose daughter Mariam, a former ISIS bride, was returned to Australia in 2022 along with her three children.

At one point Mr Burke also asked the department official to leave the room to allow a “frank discussion to take place”.

The Coalition has capitalised on the revelations, with Sussan Ley stating the Prime Minister and Mr Burke had “misled” Australians.

Kamalle Dabboussy with his daughter Mariam Dabboussy in Australia. Picture: Supplied

While her comments fell short of calling for his resignation, she called on Labor to answer key questions about the meeting.

“These are not people returning from a holiday where they got lost overseas somehow. This is a national security issue,” she said.

“These are members of a death cult which had, at its heart, the destruction of the Australian way of life.”

Coalition finance spokesman James Paterson, who obtained the documents under a Senate questions on notice, said Mr Burke should be “under very serious pressure” to explain why he asked the public servant to leave the room.

Documents released to the Senate revealed Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke held a meeting with advocates calling for Australia to assist in the repatriation of the ISIS brides cohort in June. Picture: Martin Ollman

“We can only imagine what happened after the public servant left the room. And that’s the question that Tony Burke must front up and answer today,” he told Sky.

Although Coalition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said he wasn’t oppose to the government providing assistance to the ISIS Brides cohort, he said Labor had acted in secrecy.

“The Prime Minister said that reports were inaccurate and that the government wasn’t in any way involved in bringing ISIS brides back to Australia,” he said.

“Either he was lied to by his minister or he was in on this deceit of the Australian

people.”

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles defended the meeting and said the notes confirm that the government was not involved in the repatriation.

“There was a request, but we did not engage in a repatriation beyond doing what was legally required,” he said

“The government did not assist any of the repatriations that occurred here. And that’s the consistent point that Tony Burke has been making.”

Mr Burke said the notes and said they were consistent with the government’s position and said “no repatriation” and “no assistance” was provided beyond what public servants are “legally obliged to do”.

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Originally published as Coalition pile on pressure for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to explain secret ISIS brides meeting