{"id":490870,"date":"2026-02-19T20:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490870\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T20:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:23:17","slug":"albanese-declares-he-has-nothing-but-contempt-for-women-seeking-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490870\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese declares he has \u2018nothing but contempt\u2019 for women seeking return"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

February 19, 2026 \u2014 3:57pm<\/p>\n

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared he has contempt for the Australian women stranded in a camp in Syria as the opposition questions why they were provided with passports to return from the Middle East.<\/p>\n

As the government prepares for a group of women and children to again attempt to leave the Roj camp in north-east Syria and fly to Australia, Albanese insisted the government would not provide support to help them return home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have nothing but contempt for these people,\u201d Albanese told ABC radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government is providing no support for the repatriation of these people or any support whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed on the stranded children who had no say over travelling to be part of the Islamic State caliphate, Albanese said: \u201cI have contempt for their parents who have put these children in that situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a firm position, which is that the mothers in this case who made this decision to travel overseas against Australia\u2019s national interest are the responsible ones who\u2019ve put their children in this position … We will do nothing to assist these people coming back to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cWe\u201cWe will do nothing to assist these people coming back to Australia\u201d: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the government should \u201cshut the door\u201d on the women returning to Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe people who want to bring hate and violence from another part of the world to Australia \u2013 people who do not believe in our core beliefs \u2013 should be coming into the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s as simple as that. This government has not answered the most basic questions about why these people are coming back to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Australian<\/a><\/p>\n

Taylor said the government \u201cshould be doing everything it can\u201d to stop the women from returning to Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if we need to work with the government and pass legislation, to tighten legislation, to make sure that they can\u2019t come back, we will do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on Tuesday night confirmed reporting in this masthead<\/a> that 34 women and children had been provided with Australian passports, saying, \u201cIf anyone applies for a passport, as a citizen, they are issued with a passport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said it was wrong for the government to suggest all Australians are eligible to receive a passport.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn application for a passport can be refused on national security grounds,\u201d he said. \u201cSo why is the government issuing passports and providing support to this cohort, and how can it claim it is not assisting repatriation?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people who chose to go to Syria to support the ISIS death cult \u2013 a listed terrorist organisation that inspired the Bondi terrorist attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duniam also questioned why the government had only imposed a temporary exclusion order on one of the women, rather than all of them.<\/p>\n

Assistant Immigration Minister Matt Thistlethwaite said earlier that receiving a passport was \u201ca right that everyone has as an Australian citizen. So I, as a government official or others can\u2019t stop that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said it was \u201cpretty disgraceful\u201d that the government was not actively facilitating the return of the women and children, as it did for a cohort in 2022 and the Morrison government did in 2019.<\/p>\n

\"AustralianAustralian families at al-Roj refugee camp attempting to embark on their journey home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are Australian citizens. They need to be brought back and the concerns should be dealt with in Australia,\u201d Faruqi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people have been left to languish in refugee camps for too long. If there are concerns, they need to be brought back and these are people Australia can\u2019t just turn into stateless people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Save the Children Australia chief executive Mat Tinkler said the women had agreed to work with security agencies when they returned to Australia.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"<p>\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, they volunteered to be subjected to terrorism control orders, which would be conditions placed on who they meet, where they live, how they communicate with people,\u201d he told the ABC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to mitigate any risk that they pose is to put faith in our security and enforcement agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Roj camp was \u201cone of the most difficult places in the world to be a child\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\"MatthewMatthew Knott<\/a> is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"February 19, 2026 \u2014 3:57pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-490870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}