Albanese accused of misleading parliament over secret plan to repatriate ISIS brides

NSW police says they are working with federal counterparts on arrangements for the return of Islamic State brides and their children to Australia, despite the PM hosing down reports.

Al-Roj camp, where Australian women and children linked to Islamic State members were reportedly being held in northeastern Syria in 2022. Picture: Ellen Whinnett

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been accused of “misleading the Parliament” and “skirting questions” after he poured cold water on a report about a top-secret plan to return ISIS brides to Australia, despite senior NSW police confirming discussions were underway to receive the cohort.

The Australian this week revealed exclusively that more than a dozen women and children and some young men who travelled to Syria as children were preparing to be evacuated out of camps and brought home to NSW and Victoria before Christmas.

“Those reports are not accurate,” Mr Albanese said Question Time on Wednesday.

But within hours a senior member of NSW Police confirmed discussions about the repatriation plan were underway, in footage first published by Sky News.

NSW Deputy Police Commissioner and veteran NSW Counter Terrorism Chief Dave Hudson told a police estimates session on Wednesday that he had been advised about the arrival of ISIS brides back into Australia, saying there is “no doubt” state police will have a role in their reintegration into society.

“We’ve heard most recently that the ISIS brides are now being smuggled back into Australia by the federal government, does the NSW police have a role in this repatriation at all,” Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MP Robert Borsak asked.

“We are still working through that issue with the Commonwealth. The roles have yet to be finalised between what New South Wales government, including the New South Wales Police Force and the Commonwealth roles will be,” Mr Hudson said.

“No doubt we will have a role, as will broader New South Wales Government, as we have done with previous returning brides of foreign fighters and children of such.

Mr Borsak then asked what role would NSW police play in the returning of the brides to Australia.

“Security of their return, in conjunction with the Australian Federal Police and other commonwealth agencies, but as I said, the roles of each agency have yet to be determined. If the AFP don’t play as significant a role as they have previously, we will. We’ll have to work that out,” Mr Hudson said.

“We’ve got some meetings next week in Canberra aligned with the Australian New Zealand counter terrorism committee meeting, where I’ll try and explore that further,” he said.

He said the NSW government has “a huge role” in justice, health and education when reintegrating the brides back into society.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley accused Mr Albanese of failing to “answer honest questions” following the broadcast of Deputy Commissioner Hudson’s remarks.

“If you are being kind, it highlights how he skirted questions, being more accurate, he was caught out misleading the Parliament because he knew exactly what I was asking,” Ms Ley told Sky News on Wednesday evening, referencing her question to the Prime Minister during Question Time.

Multiple federal and state government agencies are preparing for the arrival of the cohort, but will not be involved in on-the-ground aspects of the mission, unlike a similar operation conducted in 2022.

An estimated 600 to 850 women have travelled to conflict zones in Iraq and Syria from Western countries to join Islamic State after the Caliphate was established in 2013.

After the fall of the Islamic State in 2019, about 40 so-called ISIS brides, many with children, ended up in Syrian camps. It is understood there are 34 people, 14 adults and 20 children, in Al Roj camp; the youngest is five years old.

Federal Assistant Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister Julian Hill refused to speculate on the existence of the plan.

“Obviously I’m a minister in the Home Affairs portfolio, and if there was a secret plan I think you would understand why I could not come on the television and talk about the secret plans,” he told Sky News.

When pressed on whether the mission existed, Mr Hill said: “No minister would ever ­speculate about these matters in a public way in the way you are inviting me to do or indeed that some of the media stories have done.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie said the Albanese government needed to be “very careful” about who was brought home.

“When these people put in their lot to go and fight with ISIS or support ISIS at the height of the caliphate, most Australians would have thought, ‘Goodbye and good riddance’,” Mr Hastie told Sky News.

Independent MP Allegra Spender told Sky News: “With any of these sort of sensitive issues … it’s absolutely critical our security services are trusted to do their work and have their full capacity to do the investigations they need to do that effectively.”