{"id":631201,"date":"2026-04-26T03:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T03:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/631201\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T03:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T03:01:12","slug":"angus-taylor-avoids-backing-asio-amid-moves-by-isis-linked-families-to-return-to-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/631201\/","title":{"rendered":"Angus Taylor avoids backing ASIO amid moves by ISIS-linked families to return to Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government action needs to be taken to prevent a group of Australian families with links to former ISIS fighters from re-entering the country, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor says.<\/p>\n

Four women and their nine children and grandchildren have left a Syrian refugee camp, in an effort to travel home to Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Taylor questioned whether Australia’s security would be put at risk by allowing the group back into the country.<\/p>\n

Australian ‘ISIS brides’ leave camp in Syria<\/a><\/p>\n

A group of Australian families with ties to former Islamic State fighters have begun another attempt to travel home to Australia after spending years stranded in a Syrian refugee camp.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the ABC’S Insiders program, Mr Taylor said Australian interests and security had to be put ahead of people who left the country in support of a terrorist organisation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Friday the ABC revealed the group was being moved by Syrian interior forces from the Al-Roj camp to the capital Damascus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Taylor said the government should be doing everything it could to stop the families, who are Australian citizens, from travelling home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m saying the government should be making every possible effort to not accept these people back into the country,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s clear that they have been providing assistance, whether it’s through issuing and distributing passports, whether it’s doing DNA tests, whether indeed it is supporting third parties to do the repatriation.”<\/p>\n

He pointed to exclusion orders as an action that should be taken<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Only one temporary exclusion order has been issued,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We don’t know how recently security assessments have been done on these people.”<\/p>\n

On Friday, a government spokesperson said the government “is not and will not repatriate people from Syria”.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said security agencies had been monitoring the situation in Syria, but warned of consequences the cohort might face upon their arrival.<\/p>\n

“Our position hasn’t changed, we’re not providing them with any assistance, no repatriation,” Cabinet Minister Mark Butler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If they manage to get to Australian borders and they have committed any crimes they will be met by the full force of the law at those borders.”<\/p>\n

‘Do you trust ASIO?’<\/p>\n

Asked repeatedly whether he trusted ASIO assessments of the group, Mr Taylor avoided the question, instead telling Insiders he did not trust the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In the end it’s the government that makes these decisions and they are making decisions,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They had a decision in front of them, in front of the parliament, where they rejected the legislation.”<\/p>\n

That failed legislation aimed to make it an offence to help ISIS-linked families return to Australia.<\/p>\n

Mr Butler said intelligence agencies were providing security advice about temporary exclusion orders on the basis of national security grounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The families attempted to leave the Al-Roj camp for Australia in February. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

The Coalition has promised to introduce an immigration policy based on Australian values, if elected<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would be an “intelligence driven and risk-based” approach, Mr Taylor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Some of the great Australians have come from countries that were bad countries at the time,” he told Insiders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But there is a higher risk that some bad people come from those bad countries.”<\/p>\n

Asked whether he considered China a “bad country”, Mr Taylor instead pointed to Iran as an example.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If we’ve got a part of the world where we know the risks are higher, then the screens should appropriately take account of that,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It needs to be intelligence-based, based on the individual, not the country.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government action needs to be taken to prevent a group of Australian families with links to former ISIS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[155074,31945,64,63,69,62963,305803,44,305802,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-631201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-angus-taylor","9":"tag-asio","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-federal-government","13":"tag-isis","14":"tag-isis-linked-families","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-opposition-leader","17":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631201","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=631201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}