Wednesday, 4 March 2026

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (10:26): I move:

That this house:

(1)   notes that it has been reported that:

(a) most of the 11 so-called ISIS brides and their 23 children returning from Syria will be resettling in Victoria;

(b) the Premier, the Honourable Jacinta Allan MP, has admitted that the government has known about the group’s possible return as far back as September 2025;

(2)   requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, in full and unredacted:

(a) all briefs and correspondence between the Premier and the Department of Premier and Cabinet relating to the resettlement of ISIS brides; and

(b) all briefs and correspondence received from the Commonwealth government relating to the resettlement of ISIS brides.

I rise to speak on my documents motion, which is asking the government for information on ISIS brides. It is something of deep concern to my community, as I know it is of deep concern to many members of the Victorian public, whereby we have seen that most of the 11 so-called ISIS brides and their 23 children returning from Syria will be resettled here in Victoria. The Premier has admitted that the government has known about the group’s possible return as far back as September 2025, and so we are asking the government for all briefs and correspondence between the Premier and the Department of Premier and Cabinet relating to the resettlement of ISIS brides and all briefs and correspondence received from the Commonwealth relating to the resettlement of ISIS brides.

Members of my community, and indeed most Victorians, have been shocked by reports that most of the 11 so-called ISIS brides will be returning from Syria and resettling in Victoria. It has been a particular concern and sent a shiver down the spine of many Assyrian, Chaldean, Yazidi, Alawite, Shia Muslim and Druze constituents in my electorate who had their lives torn apart. They lost family and loved ones and fled the violence of ISIS. It is a horrifying thought that these women – who chose and made the very deliberate decision to leave Australia and go to a war zone to support the terrorist acts of ISIS – could now be able to walk freely down the same streets as those they captured, tortured and tormented. Any adult who has left Australia to align themselves with this barbaric terrorist organisation should not be welcomed back into our state.

I cannot put it better than the president of the Socio-Cultural Syriac Association, Mukhles Habash, who said:

The presence or return of individuals linked to such extremist ideology could threaten the sense of safety for our children in the future, especially as there is no place further than Australia we could turn to if this sense of security is lost.

For Mukhles and the 12,000 refugees who escaped and came to Australia, the atrocities of Islamic State were not things far away; they were their horrific lived experience. As a country and as a state who have welcomed people in, it is our first duty to protect them and make them feel safe.

The Premier, as the leader of our state, shoulders that duty most of all. I think this is about leadership, and we know that the Premier, as far back as September of last year, knew about the likelihood of these ISIS brides returning to Victoria. Last month she admitted she had not bothered to raise this with her federal counterparts at all. I think that is a failure of leadership. It is simply not good enough to handball this to the Commonwealth government, say nothing and claim that the Victorian government is powerless to act. It is well established, including by former home affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo, that it is ultimately the states who will foot the bill and provide the services to these people as they arrive. As he said to a Senate estimates hearing a few years ago, ultimately if a state turned around and said, ‘We don’t want these people,’ the federal government would have to take that very seriously. It is shocking to think that the tax dollars of law-abiding refugees who escaped the horrors of Islamic State could now be used to house, feed and clothe those who aided their terror.

It is well documented in multiple academic studies but also firsthand accounts from ISIS survivors who live in my electorate that these ISIS brides were not partial observers who did not have any agency. They actively assisted with the enslavement of persecuted minorities. They assisted their husband-fighters with slavery, sex trafficking and trade, and the imprisonment of those that were persecuted. I know many in the Assyrian community who were captured for up to six months by ISIS, and they will tell you that these ISIS brides actively assisted – they actively took part in enslavement. So I think it is fair to ask the government for correspondence on this. I think, to his credit, the New South Wales Premier has been quite clear with his community on this. He has appeared to actively consult with affected communities. I think it is the duty of the state government to consult with those affected communities in the first instance to give them an opportunity to at least know what is happening – to know if these people are moving into their suburbs. I think that opportunity should be provided to people that have called Victoria home too.

 Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Prevention of Family Violence) (10:33): This is a matter that our government takes incredibly seriously. Yes, it is very much about leadership. Community safety is our number one priority – not politics, not headlines, but safety. I want to be incredibly clear from the outset that citizenship and travel decisions are made by the Commonwealth government. These are national security matters handled by federal agencies. Victoria does not issue passports, Victoria does not determine citizenship status and we will not participate in undermining the important work of our security agencies. Our responsibility here in Victoria is crystal clear. It is about keeping Victorians safe. It is about protecting our community’s social cohesion. It is supporting the work of Victoria Police, including their work with federal agencies.

As Minister for Multicultural Affairs, social cohesion is something I take incredibly seriously, and it is at the heart of my work. When tensions are high, it is incumbent upon me – indeed it is incumbent upon all of us in this place – to listen to all communities and help to bring that tension down. No multicultural community is served by polarisation and division, and all multicultural communities suffer when they are subjected to racist and divisive rhetoric. Those opposite have shown that they are not truly interested in our social cohesion – in the idea that all Australians should be treated with respect and feel that they belong. They are only interested in finding another global crisis or point of tension – in this case one that is entirely within the remit of the Commonwealth government – to use it in their politics of division to inflame tensions and sow fear.

This motion really does show how low Jess Wilson and the Liberal Party are willing to go to cosy up to Pauline Hanson and to One Nation.

Many Victorian families, particularly Assyrian, Chaldean, Syrian and Lebanese Christian communities, fled ISIS violence. Churches were destroyed, families were displaced, communities were terrorised – and so were Muslims. ISIS persecuted Muslims who rejected them. ISIS murdered Muslims. The vast majority of ISIS victims overseas were Muslim. The point I am making here is that trauma is real and it touches many parts of our community. It is why many of these communities, from so many different backgrounds, came to Australia seeking safety and freedom. I say to all of them: your safety matters. We will not allow anyone to divide them.

It is measured, thoughtful leadership that keeps communities safe and united, not whipping up fear, not inflaming tensions. It is rejecting extremism, clear and simple, not fuelling it. It is calling out racism and hate, not standing by those who peddle it, whether it is One Nation or the federal Liberal Party. It is supporting laws that make hate speech a crime, not voting against them. Not once have I heard any of those opposite condemn the hateful anti-Muslim comments of Pauline Hanson or the anti-Indian comments of Jacinta Price or the anti-immigration comments of Angus Taylor. Not once have I heard a condemnation from that side of the chamber. These are not mere assertions. This shows calculation. It is a political strategy; it is divisive and it is cynical.

Multicultural affairs is not a portfolio about culture wars, it is about trust in the community, and our government will never take that trust for granted. We will continue to work with our multicultural communities. Our government has strengthened coordination between state and federal agencies. We have invested in Victoria Police. We have continued to support traumatised communities no matter where they have fled persecution from. We have strengthened our anti-vilification protections, and we will continue to invest in social cohesion, because unity does not happen automatically, it requires leadership. The Liberals voted against our nation-leading anti-vilification laws because they were more focused on peace in their party room than peace in our community. There is a big difference between legitimate security and fearmongering, and Victorian communities frankly deserve better.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (10:38): It is the convention of this place to support documents motions on the basis of transparency, even if we do not support whatever purpose is being sought, and on that basis I suspect this motion may go through. But I cannot just let this pass without highlighting some of the disgraceful rhetoric that has been used, and in particular the use of the description ‘ISIS brides’ for the information this pertains to. It is not just a term that is used once; it is used repeatedly to describe these people and as the only description of these people. There were many other words that could have been used, but the choice of ‘ISIS brides’ was a deliberate choice and demonstrates the kind of base dog whistling that has sadly become a feature of the Liberal Party in this country. It is dehumanising and reductive language that erases all nuance, context and agency of the women. The contemporary inability of politics to allow for nuanced, difficult discussions is a cancer on public discourse, particularly when it comes to sensitive issues like this. The public discourse around this has been frankly disgusting and perpetuated not only by politicians from all parties, including Labor, Liberal and One Nation and different members of those parties, but also by many parts of the media.

If there are national security risks, there are processes for dealing with that. No-one for a second is denying that those issues need to be considered. Professor Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, has said that any security risk can be effectively managed when the women return to Australia, but through proper processes, not just based on what Mr Mulholland thinks. If there are community concerns – and I am very aware of and sensitive to such concerns given the horrific experiences many members of our communities, as Minister Stitt has highlighted, have had due to ISIS actions – let us have the maturity to engage with these concerns and communities in a compassionate and thoughtful way.

But the gross politicisation we have seen is doing nothing to address those issues. Instead it has been a race to the bottom, and to what end? It does not make anyone safer, and it certainly does nothing to make our communities more inclusive.

The circumstances that led to these Australian women ending up in Syria are varied and complex. While some may have gone willingly and actively supported ISIS, many were very young, some were coerced and manipulated and some became accidentally trapped while holidaying in neighbouring countries. Many have had children while detained indefinitely in these camps – children who are just that, children. But they too are being treated as political footballs rather than innocent lives caught up in horrendous circumstances through no choice of their own. All of these people are living in deplorable conditions and being indefinitely held unlawfully and arbitrarily. Even if you cannot see that and are unwilling to engage in sensible, nuanced, compassionate discussions, the reality is that Australia has a legal and national security obligation to repatriate, prosecute or reintegrate its citizens.

In any case, none of this is relevant to actions the Victorian government can take, but Mr Mulholland and the Liberal Party know this. Instead of showing leadership by demonstrating how we can have difficult conversations about difficult issues and helping to bring the community along with us, they bring this motion in here which is nothing more than a deeply cynical move aimed at stoking fear and division.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:42): Well, what do you say? Community safety is Labor’s number one priority, but the same cannot be said for the Liberal Party, because when you stand with Pauline Hanson, you stand with the politics of hate, pure and simple. The coalition is eyeing victory using One Nation preferences. Jess Wilson has refused to rule out a preference deal with One Nation, while Jeff Kennett insists they make one. We know the price of that deal is spreading fear and hate in our community, and that is what this motion risks doing. We will not allow that division in Victoria, and we do not want to see communities being turned against each other for political gain, including by the conduct of the Shadow Minister for Multicultural and Multifaith Affairs.

This Labor government is governing for all Victorians, not seeking cheap headlines. Of course transparency is legitimate and important, but fear-based politics is not. Some politicians see every crisis as an opportunity to divide. We see these moments as a responsibility to protect. The multicultural affairs portfolio is one that centres on trust. It centres on restraint and respect and is about lowering the temperature when communities are hurting. But the shadow minister for multicultural affairs has demonstrated again and again his inability to distinguish between legitimate scrutiny of government and reckless fearmongering. When you inflame rather than reassure, you undermine cohesion; when you elevate fear over facts, you damage trust; and when you reopen trauma for political gain, you disqualify yourself from that role.

Victorian communities deserve better – better than what they are getting from the shadow minister for multicultural affairs and better than what they are getting from the Liberal Party. Victorians can see the shadow minister’s political wedge here. It is another example of what happens when you want to stand shoulder to shoulder with Pauline Hanson. This week it is 30 years since Pauline Hanson was elected to the House of Representatives with the word ‘Liberal’ next to her name on the ballot paper. The coalition is seeking victory on the back of One Nation preferences and singling out campaigns against multicultural communities to help get them there.

You cannot claim to stand with multicultural communities while standing beside and doing deals with those who divide them. Communities deserve respect and not culture wars.

The question before us – aside from what is written on the notice paper and the motion before us – is really a question of leadership. Is this the kind of leadership in the multicultural affairs portfolio that the Liberal Party wants to see? Is this the kind of multicultural affairs agenda the Liberal Party wants in our community? Is this the kind of shadow minister’s conduct that the Leader of the Opposition expects and endorses? Will she continue to allow him to inflame tensions in our community? The trust that we seek with those communities depends on the standards that you uphold. As I said at the start of our remarks, community safety must come first; it must always come first. Unity, particularly with our multicultural communities, matters. Leadership matters when issues are sensitive, and on this matter today, these issues concern Australian citizens returning from a foreign conflict zone. As the minister said, it is the Commonwealth that has responsibility for immigration, for borders and for passports, and it has been for around the last 125 years. National security is a Commonwealth responsibility handled by federal agencies. Victoria is focused on our community safety, and that is our role. We do not want people to import division and hatred into Victoria. We do not want extremists here, and we do not want opportunistic politicians either.

Motion agreed to.