{"id":501805,"date":"2026-02-24T22:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501805\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T22:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:12:07","slug":"in-2022-labor-mps-urged-compassion-for-australian-women-and-children-stuck-in-syria-now-albanese-has-only-contempt-australian-immigration-and-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501805\/","title":{"rendered":"In 2022, Labor MPs urged compassion for Australian women and children stuck in Syria. Now Albanese has only contempt | Australian immigration and asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just after question time on 23 November 2022,<\/a> the federal parliament debated a motion relating to the repatriation of four Australian women and 13 children who had been stuck in a Syrian detention camp since the fall of Islamic State three years prior.<\/p>\n

One after another Labor MPs<\/a> argued with passion, clarity and logic about why it was not just acceptable, but necessary and morally right, for the federal government to assist the return of its own citizens from the squalid and dangerous camps.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the contribution of Clare O\u2019Neil, then the minister for home affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it in the nation\u2019s interests for a large group of Australian children, who will in all likelihood one day return to Australia, to spend their formative years living in a squalid refugee camp where they have very little access to health, where they do not get to go to school and where they are subjected every day to radical ideologies that tell them to hate their own country, or are they safer growing up here with Australian values?\u201d O\u2019Neil asked parliament.<\/p>\n

Fellow MP Lisa Chesters appealed for sympathy not just for the innocent children but also the women, many of whom she said were \u201ccoerced, were tricked\u201d into travelling to Syria<\/a> to join Islamic State.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThese women deserve our support, compassion and understanding,\u201d the member for Bendigo said. \u201cThese women deserve a moment for healing and a chance to rebuild their lives in a country that they are part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Freelander, a paediatrician whose daughter visited al-Hawl camp in Syria with aid group M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, said: \u201cI cannot see those kids \u2013 any kids \u2013 be exposed to that, without trying to fix it\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his speech, Labor MP Luke Gosling said resettling the women and children was both \u201cadmirable\u201d and \u201csmart\u201d \u2013 not least because the security agencies recommended it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about a cohort, it\u2019s women and children. It\u2019s Australian women and children, kicked down the road, which is a road to ruin,\u201d Gosling said, describing the camps as \u201chorrific\u201d scenes of rape, assaults, sickness and death.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s just think about what we\u2019re really doing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markAlbanese and Burke are facing no internal pushback against rhetoric that would have been unthinkable three years ago<\/p>\n

The tone and content of those speeches are entirely unrecognisable to the harsh language the Albanese government is deploying today, as it attempts to convince the public it is doing everything it can to not help the latest group of women and children escape the camp and return to Australia.<\/p>\n

Appearing on the Karl Stefanovic podcast on Tuesday<\/a>, Albanese again declared his \u201ccontempt\u201d for the adults who had travelled to Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said this before, but my mum had a saying, \u2018if you make your bed, you lie in it\u2019. And as far as I\u2019m concerned, I have nothing but contempt for these people,\u201d the prime minister said.<\/p>\n

Tony Burke, who replaced O\u2019Neil as home affairs minister in 2024, bluntly told the ABC\u2019s Insiders program: \u201cwe don\u2019t want them back\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actively making sure we do nothing to help them, nothing to help them at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As home affairs minister in 2022, Clare O\u2019Neil argued that by managing the return of the Australian cohort in Syria, the government could ensure proper security checks, ongoing monitoring of the adults as well as reintegration and rehabilitation for the children. Photograph: Lukas Coch\/AAP<\/p>\n

The dramatic shift in policy and rhetoric would be irreconcilable if it wasn\u2019t so easily, and lamentably, explained by Australia\u2019s ugly politics of immigration<\/a> in 2026.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Bondi beach massacre, which was allegedly inspired by Islamic State, and the surge in support for Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation<\/a>, Labor is clearly hypersensitive to perceptions it is weak on Islamic extremism.<\/p>\n

Such anxieties are influencing the government\u2019s better judgment, obscuring its ability to recognise the merits of the very same arguments its own MPs laid out so clearly a little over three years ago.<\/p>\n

For example, O\u2019Neil argued that by managing the returns in a \u201ccontrolled way\u201d the government could ensure proper security checks, ongoing monitoring of the adults as well as reintegration and rehabilitation for the children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t do this, if we do as those opposite did \u2013 that is, stick our heads in the sand and pretend this problem is going to go away \u2013 then we are doing a disservice to the country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neil\u2019s comment is a reminder that it is not just Labor whose position has shifted: it was under Scott Morrison\u2019s prime ministership that eight orphaned children were repatriated from north-eastern Syria in 2019.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on those speeches from November 2022 tells another story about what has become one of the defining characteristics of the Albanese government.<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia has spoken to several Labor MPs who shared the views expressed that day and are uncomfortable with Albanese and Burke\u2019s hardline rhetoric, but are unwilling to say so publicly out of a reluctance to rock the boat.<\/p>\n

Chesters, Freelander, Gosling and Peter Khalil \u2013 who also made a speech that day \u2013 either declined to comment or did not respond to Guardian Australia\u2019s requests.<\/p>\n

With such a quiet and compliant caucus, Albanese and Burke are facing no internal pushback against the sort of rhetoric that would have been unthinkable a little over three years ago.<\/p>\n

Including to their own MPs.<\/p>\n

Dan Jervis-Bardy is Guardian Australia\u2019s chief political correspondent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just after question time on 23 November 2022, the federal parliament debated a motion relating to the repatriation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-501805","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\/501805","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=501805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}