Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ashlan McGee.
Speaker 2: This is seven am. When you look at the Al
Speaker 2: Roje refugee camp in northern Syria on Google Maps, you
Speaker 2: can see that it's only a few hundred meters away
Speaker 2: from an airport tarmac, But for the Australians stuck in
Speaker 2: the camp, getting on a plane home could.
Speaker 1: Still be years away.
Speaker 2: About forty women and their children are living there intense
Speaker 2: with no water, no electricity, and no real plan for
Speaker 2: their future. Today the Saturday Papers Jason Katsuki so on
Speaker 2: why the government seems to have abandoned its plans to
Speaker 2: bring them home. It's Tuesday, May twenty one. Jason, tell
Speaker 2: me a bit about these camps where the Australian women
Speaker 2: and children are stranded.
Speaker 3: So we think about forty forty one Australian citizens, women
Speaker 3: and children who are living mostly in Al Roj, which
Speaker 3: is a large camp of internally displaced persons that's controlled
Speaker 3: by the Syrian Democratic forces up near the Iraqi border.
Speaker 1: These are the.
Speaker 4: Women and children left behind after the fall of Islamic
Speaker 4: State in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: We're all tayed, to be honest, like we just want
Speaker 1: a normal life.
Speaker 3: These are women who went to join the kind of
Speaker 3: Islamic Caliphate and married men who were considered to be
Speaker 3: fighters and part of that Islamic state terrorist group.
Speaker 5: It's understood most of the women won't face any charges
Speaker 5: when and if they returned to Australia after they were
Speaker 5: trafficked or coerced by relatives to enter Syria.
Speaker 3: Many of them had children while they've been living over
Speaker 3: there in Syria, and now that the war is kind
Speaker 3: of essentially over, they are stranded in these camps.
Speaker 2: We're tired, we're broken, which shaded.
Speaker 3: We just want normality for our kids.
Speaker 5: It's not fair.
Speaker 1: It's not fair for the kids.
Speaker 6: It's not fair for us.
Speaker 3: Most of us didn't even come willingly. I'm not a
Speaker 3: refugee of a country, like what am I doing. The
Speaker 3: Oleroche camp is located next to an oil field, so
Speaker 3: there's a lot of pollution that's coming from the oil
Speaker 3: field and floating through the camp. It's located in a desert.
Speaker 3: It gets very very hot there in summer. Temperatures now
Speaker 3: already in the mid to high forties, so it's very
Speaker 3: unpleasant conditions. Obviously very crowded. These are tents and it's
Speaker 3: very makeshift. None of those essential kind of services that
Speaker 3: we're used to hear. You're running water, electricity, you have
Speaker 3: very harsh conditions and of course no air conditioning. What
Speaker 3: the governing authority there wants is for all of the
Speaker 3: country whose citizens are detained in this camp, they want
Speaker 3: those countries to repatriate their citizens to their home countries.
Speaker 2: So Jason, it's not just the governing authority there in
Speaker 2: northern Syria that wants these Australians returned home, is it.
Speaker 1: There's a bit of pressure back here as well.
Speaker 3: So Save the Children has been one of the strongest
Speaker 3: advocates for the repatriation of the Australian citizens who are
Speaker 3: in Syria. Matt Tinkler, the CEO of Save the Children Australia.
Speaker 3: One of the things he said this week was these
Speaker 3: are Australian citizens.
Speaker 7: They are all Australian citizens. All of these children are innocent,
Speaker 7: All of them are trapped in a dire situation.
Speaker 3: What is the value of Australian citizenship if your government
Speaker 3: is not prepared to step in and help you when
Speaker 3: you're stranded overseas.
Speaker 7: There's no good reason and ow of you are no
Speaker 7: reasonable explanation as to why some women and children were
Speaker 7: brought home and others were not.
Speaker 3: They had been in encouraging the former Morrison government to
Speaker 3: repatriate those citizens. Scott Morrison authorized the return of eight
Speaker 3: children in twenty nineteen, and I think there was an
Speaker 3: expectation that he was prepared to consider the repatriation of
Speaker 3: all the others, but then COVID got in the way.
Speaker 3: Then when the new government came in in October twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, they repatriated seventeen people, that was four women
Speaker 3: and thirteen children, and then things kind of stopped, and
Speaker 3: save the children continued to advocate the return of the
Speaker 3: other forty, but there's been no movement. So they decided
Speaker 3: that the best thing they could do to put pressure
Speaker 3: on the government was to try to get the court,
Speaker 3: the Federal Court, to issue a rid of habeas corpus
Speaker 3: so literally bring the body to the court. The Federal
Speaker 3: Court is a world away from a Middle Eastern war zone,
Speaker 3: but a group of Australians stuck in Syria believe this
Speaker 3: is where they can win back their freedom. That attempt
Speaker 3: was heard in the Federal Court by Justice Mashinsky and
Speaker 3: he dismissed the application on the basis that the Australian
Speaker 3: government just does not have control of these people and
Speaker 3: therefore the court was unabled to issue this rid of
Speaker 3: habeas corpus and Save the Children have appealed that ruling.
Speaker 3: So Greg Barton, he's a research professor in Global Islamic
Speaker 3: politics at Deacon University. He has provided an affidavit in
Speaker 3: support of Save the Children application. It's his very strong
Speaker 3: view that there's no obstacles to the Australian government repatriating
Speaker 3: the citizens who are located there. He is also of
Speaker 3: the strong view that the governing authority in that part
Speaker 3: of Syria very much wants the Australian government to repatriate
Speaker 3: our citizens and that they will do whatever they can
Speaker 3: to help to facilitate that.
Speaker 1: So why nonsense? Then what has happened?
Speaker 2: Do you think that's really put the brakes on this?
Speaker 3: I think this is a classic case of politics getting
Speaker 3: in the way of good policy. Prime Minister Albanezi knows.
Speaker 3: I think that the right decision is to bring all
Speaker 3: of these citizens back home. He made a very powerful
Speaker 3: argument in favor of why that's necessary in October of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: People have gone to where they are from. That is
Speaker 4: what has occurred here and that there's been something that's
Speaker 4: been worked through with the States, and it has been
Speaker 4: worked through on the basis of the national security advice.
Speaker 4: Will keep acting on the national security advice. Our priority
Speaker 4: is to keep Australian safe.
Speaker 3: But once those seventeen people were back home, community leaders
Speaker 3: around where those seventeen people were returned, these are people
Speaker 3: in Western Sydney, started to get a bit worried about
Speaker 3: the security risks posed by these seventeen people. Those community
Speaker 3: leaders are led by there's three mayors from Western Sydney.
Speaker 3: They turned this into a national news story.
Speaker 4: Where the radio silence from the government, from the Albanesi government,
Speaker 4: a complete lack of details.
Speaker 3: The communities where these women and children are.
Speaker 5: Likely to end up have accused the government of playing politics.
Speaker 3: One that was quite astutely kind of fanned by Peter Dutton,
Speaker 3: the leader of the Opposition.
Speaker 8: There is a very significant risk in bringing some of
Speaker 8: these people to our country that can't be mitigated, frankly,
Speaker 8: not to the level that we would require to keep
Speaker 8: Australian safe. And I think the government really needs to
Speaker 8: explain properly what it is they're proposing here.
Speaker 3: But the most prominent of those was Frank Carbon, the
Speaker 3: mayor of Fairfield, which is located in western Sydney.
Speaker 9: We stand by them. They're not welcoming Fairfood and if
Speaker 9: a wants to bring them back, well perhaps he can
Speaker 9: put them in his own neighborhood where he lives. We
Speaker 9: certainly don't want to be Fairfuld. We don't think it's so.
Speaker 3: He's a former member of the Labor Party who became
Speaker 3: an independent. He's quite a popular local mayor and he
Speaker 3: really became a thorn in the side of the federal
Speaker 3: government's plans to repatriate more of the Australians who are
Speaker 3: over in Syria.
Speaker 6: Stay alive.
Speaker 1: There's not much you can do about it.
Speaker 3: That well, there's not much.
Speaker 9: We can do about it, but I can certainly make
Speaker 9: a lot of noise and we're very passionate out hearing
Speaker 9: fairful in that community will not forgive and forget, and
Speaker 9: we're telling Albo make sure you do the right thing.
Speaker 9: Put the strange.
Speaker 3: A few weeks after the repatriation there was this kind
Speaker 3: of showdown at the Fairfield City Council offices where the
Speaker 3: Minister for Home Affairs, Clara O'Neil, went to meet the mayors,
Speaker 3: including Frank Cabon and the Mayor of Liverpool, ned Manoon.
Speaker 3: The Home Affairs Minister is gearing up to meet with
Speaker 3: Western Sydney mayors to discuss the repatriation of ISIS family
Speaker 3: members in their communities. She brought along with her the
Speaker 3: Deputy Director of ASIO, Chris Teele, and they sat down
Speaker 3: in a room in the council offices and they went
Speaker 3: through all the issues. It took weeks, if not months
Speaker 3: to settle down, and I think by the end of
Speaker 3: that Anthony Albernezi has decided, well, he just doesn't want
Speaker 3: that issue back on the front page, especially as we're
Speaker 3: in the lead up to an election. This is just
Speaker 3: a problem that Anthony Alberanezi wants to go away. He
Speaker 3: doesn't want it to be back in the news headlines,
Speaker 3: distracting from all the other things he's doing to try
Speaker 3: to secure his re election next year.
Speaker 2: After the break what the experts say about whether these
Speaker 2: families are really a risk to the community. So, Jason,
Speaker 2: You've got these politicians in Western Sydney who are kicking
Speaker 2: up a stink given these women and children have spent
Speaker 2: so much time in countries and in camps where they're exposed.
Speaker 1: To radical ideologies. Are those safety concerns?
Speaker 3: Val I don't think the concerns are valid at all,
Speaker 3: because of all of the people that have been repatriated
Speaker 3: to their home countries over the last five to six years,
Speaker 3: there hasn't been a single incident, a single security incident
Speaker 3: involving any of those people. And of the seventeen that
Speaker 3: were returned to Australia back in twenty twenty two, they've
Speaker 3: all just integrated very, very smoothly and peacefully back into
Speaker 3: life in Australia. They've all got families here in Australia,
Speaker 3: extended families, and those families have been very keen to
Speaker 3: help them settle back into life in Australia. They've all
Speaker 3: cooperated with the Australian authorities, and we've seen that not
Speaker 3: just here in Australia, but in every other country that
Speaker 3: has repatriated citizens from the camps in Syria. So I
Speaker 3: think what we're seeing from people who are voicing these
Speaker 3: objections perhaps getting in the way of any further repatriations,
Speaker 3: is just classical expediency. As Dennis Richardson, the former Director
Speaker 3: General of ASIO and former Ambassador to the United States,
Speaker 3: has said very clearly at the time, and he reiterated
Speaker 3: those comments this week.
Speaker 6: Well, look, I don't want to get involved in party
Speaker 6: politics of it.
Speaker 3: The idea that Australian authorities can't monitor these people once
Speaker 3: they're home and ensure that they're not going to get
Speaker 3: involved in any kind of extremist activity is just nonsense.
Speaker 6: I would simply note that the United States, Canada, the
Speaker 6: UK and a range of other countries have founded within
Speaker 6: their wit to take similar people back to their own countries,
Speaker 6: and if they can do it, it's simply a nonsense
Speaker 6: to suggest that we can't.
Speaker 3: It's very much in Denis Richardson's view and certainly the
Speaker 3: view of the AFP and other agencies, that they can
Speaker 3: manage any security concern surrounding these people.
Speaker 2: So Jason, if we have people like Dennis Richardson saying
Speaker 2: these people under security threat, then what exactly is the
Speaker 2: government's position here?
Speaker 1: What have they been saying to you.
Speaker 3: The people that I've been speaking to this week in
Speaker 3: the government have told me that while no formal decision
Speaker 3: has been made not to bring the Australian citizens back home,
Speaker 3: the government is not going to do anything to actually
Speaker 3: bring them back home. Between now and the election. That
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Anthony Alberinezi has effectively shelved this decision for
Speaker 3: the foreseeable future. That it's highly unlikely to be revisited
Speaker 3: until after the election, which we're expecting around March April
Speaker 3: May next year. I guess the only thing that could
Speaker 3: possibly change that is if there was a very serious
Speaker 3: deterioration in the security situation surrounding the two camps where
Speaker 3: those citizens are located. I think if there was a
Speaker 3: very serious threat to life, then the government might be
Speaker 3: moved to act a bit so, but it seems highly
Speaker 3: unlikely at this stage that anything will happen until next year.
Speaker 2: So, given other countries are repatriating their citizens, I imagine
Speaker 2: that the group that is responsible for these camps, the
Speaker 2: Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, I imagine they're
Speaker 2: not too chuffter the Australian governments not taking back our citizens.
Speaker 2: What sort of pressure is there on the Australian government
Speaker 2: to bring them home now?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's fair to say that they are
Speaker 3: pleading with the Australian government to repatriate their citizens. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're saying that these cabs are a major burden for them.
Speaker 3: They're massive security risks for northern Syria. They want to
Speaker 3: do everything they can to reduce the number of people there,
Speaker 3: the burden that they are carrying. It is possible that
Speaker 3: the Federal Court will overturn the first decision which dismissed
Speaker 3: the application for the rid of habeas corpus, but I
Speaker 3: think that's probably unlike even if the court ruled in
Speaker 3: favor of save the children application, I think the Commonwealth
Speaker 3: would probably then appeal that decision to the High Court.
Speaker 3: We'd see probably more legal argument. I think we just
Speaker 3: have to wait until the political circumstances are right, that
Speaker 3: the government feels that they can repatriate the citizens who
Speaker 3: are mating over there without incurring a significant political cost.
Speaker 3: It's one of those classic political scenarios where the interests
Speaker 3: of voters at home trump the interests of those who
Speaker 3: are stranded overseas.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your time, Jason.
Speaker 3: Thanks Ashland, it's great to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, the president and Foreign Minister
Speaker 2: of Iran have being killed in a helicopter crash, according
Speaker 2: to Iranian media reports. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic
Speaker 2: states an election for a new president must be held
Speaker 2: within fifty days, which comes as voter turn out in
Speaker 2: Iran reached historic lows during recent parliamentary elections, and the
Speaker 2: Australian Electoral Commission has conceded that AI deep fakes are
Speaker 2: likely to be used in the upcoming election and that
Speaker 2: it's limited in its.
Speaker 1: Ability to stop it.
Speaker 2: The AEC's commissioner, Tom Rogers says robo calls using deep
Speaker 2: fakes could in some cases be perfectly legal, adding that
Speaker 2: his organizations.
Speaker 1: Quote electoral toolkit.
Speaker 2: Is very constrained with what we can deal with and
Speaker 2: not deal with. I'm Ashelin McGee. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. We'll see you again tomorrow