ttbn,

You say the Albanese government would stop at nothing, including bringing back "treacherous females" with links to ISIS. The reality is a little less dramatic than that.

In fact, reports confirm that a third repatriation mission is underway. Around 14 adults and 20 children in camps near the Syrian-Turkish border are being quietly brought back to NSW and Victoria soon (The Australian, News.com.au, Sky). No Australian agents are going into Syria - it’s all handled from afar, coordinating with families, aid groups, and regional authorities.

Tony Burke is technically correct: the government won’t extract people in person. What they are doing is facilitating travel documents, reintegration planning, and security monitoring.

So yes, more returnees are on the way. But it’s not about open-door cheerleading - it’s a controlled, security-monitored process aimed at reintegrating vulnerable Australians, especially children, while managing risks appropriately.

When participants boast that it was a rare day Australians weren’t "outnumbered by foreigners," that’s not a policy discussion anymore. That’s a test of identity. By that logic, the immigrants who marched alongside would have been "foreigners."

So where do they fit - “us” or “them”? That’s the problem: it collapses citizenship into "us" and "them," and puts millions of Australians into the "them" column.

If the goal is to debate immigration levels, fair enough. But so long as the loudest voices frame it as "spot-the-foreigner," it won’t be seen as a mainstream policy debate - it will be seen as exclusion.

And rightly so.

Hi ttbn,
"That's the Australian females who left here to marry ISIS terrorists, who were later knocked off, leaving their widows and children in camps, with families here moaning about the previous government not allowing them to come back to Australia."
- I suppose we could let them build a tent city in the desert equal to what they had in a foreign country, but fence them in and don't let them or their terrorist inclined families near the rest of us.
Camp Allah Ackbar, in the middle of the Simpson desert.

Hi John Daysh
"What they are doing is facilitating travel documents, reintegration planning, and security monitoring.

So yes, more returnees are on the way. But it’s not about open-door cheerleading - it’s a controlled, security-monitored process aimed at reintegrating vulnerable Australians, especially children, while managing risks appropriately."

Yeah ok and who will foot the bill for these peoples stupidity?
Why should some Australians pay for the stupidity of others?

Lets say I go and play on the roof of my house and I fall off the roof and break my leg.
Do you think it's fair that everyone has to pay for my medical needs?
We should introduce a 'stupidity charge'.

I say let these ISIS lovers have a choice, make them either pay the cost of their own stupidity themselves, or have 'ISIS loving idiot' tattooed on their forheads, their choice.
That is after they are sent to prison, for doing what the government told them not to do in the first place.

Also I'd make all Uni students pay back every cent of debt.
I think about the 60 year olds cleaning the local public toilets.
And they don't gain anything when Uni grads are let off their debts.
It's just vote-buying.

The person who came up with that should have 'loves giving away other peoples taxes to people who will never have to work shite jobs' tattooed on their foreheads.

Just like the person who decided 'dormant bank accounts go into government coffers' should have 'loves stealing other peoples money' tattooed on their foreheads.

Armchair Critic,

We already accept, as a society, that taxpayers cover the consequences of stupidity. That’s why hospitals treat smokers with lung disease and SES volunteers rescue hikers who ignored weather warnings.

The reason we do it is because the alternative - letting people die in the street or the bush - would say something far worse about us.

The ISIS returnees are Australian citizens. The children are as Australian as anyone else. We don’t get to pretend they’ve ceased to exist because we don’t like their parents’ choices. What we CAN do is manage the risks through surveillance, legal process, and reintegration - exactly what’s being done.

Taxpayers foot the bill for plenty of bad decisions. That’s not new. The real question is whether we want to abandon citizenship altogether, or treat even the worst mistakes within a framework of law and responsibility.

On a purely emotional level, I couldn't give a rat's arse what happens to ISIS wives. On a more rational level, I understand that what abandonment would say about us is potentially far more damaging in the long run.