Tony Burke ‘taking advice’ from security agencies about Australian women and children in Syria seeking to return

Home affairs minister Tony Burke is “taking advice” from security agencies on whether Australian women and children in a Syrian detention camp should be temporarily banned from returning, but it is unclear how many in the cohort such an order would apply to.

On Monday night, 34 Australian women and children – the wives, widows and children of dead or jailed Islamic State fighters – left from the al-Roj camp, in north-eastern Syria, after being released by Kurdish authorities for their expected repatriation to Australia.

But they were forced to return due to “poor coordination between their relatives and the Damascus government”, a camp official told Agence France-Presse. The Guardian understands their repatriation had not been organised by the Australian government and it was unclear if the group was in possession of their travel documents.

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Anthony Albanese has repeatedly pledged there would be no help from the Australian government in repatriating the group, but conceded government officials had “obligations” to issue passports to citizens and has previously said citizens had the right to return.

But on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Burke said the government was “constantly receiving advice from our agencies about whether the threshold for Temporary Exclusion Orders has been met”.

“We will always act in accordance with advice from our law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies,” the spokesperson said.

Temporary exclusion orders are provided for under counter-terror legislation, allowing the home affairs minister to make an order to prevent someone outside Australia from entering the country for a period up to two years.

There is a high bar for such an order to be made; a TEO can only be made if the minister “suspects on reasonable grounds” that such an order would prevent a terrorist act, prevent training being provided to or received from a listed terror group, the supporting of a terrorist act or terror group, or if the person has been assessed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to be “a risk to security” related to politically motivated violence.

A TEO can only apply to someone over the age of 14, with an order placed on someone aged 14 to 17 requiring additional safeguards.

It is unclear how many of the 34 cohort that these conditions would apply to.

Speaking about a separate cohort of Australians who’d returned from Syria in October 2025, Albanese said the government also did not assist that group, but added: “The Australian citizens, of course, have the right to enter Australia.”

Liberal senator and former home affairs shadow minister under Sussan Ley, Jonno Duniam, demanded the government do “everything to prevent these people from re-entering Australia while they present a risk”, suggesting TEOs be applied because the cohort had followed their Islamic State fighter husbands to Syria.

“These are people who have been part of a group that want to attack our way of life and are a very serious risk to our society,” Duniam said.

“Issuing TEOs while every possible measure is activated to protect law-abiding Australians from any risk of harm that this group of people may pose to the community is the very least that this government must do. Anything less will be a failure.”

Greens senator David Shoebridge urged the government to help the women and children, noting some of them were as young as six and many were victims of Islamic State.

“The fundamental responsibility of the government is to protect Australian citizens, and children most of all. The fact that Albanese is instead using this moment to put kids in danger and doing his best One Nation impression is disgusting. Children should not be held responsible for their parents’ actions,” he said.

Albanese on Tuesday defended the government’s stance of not assisting the current group of 34 women and children to return to Australia.

“My mother would have said if you make your bed, you lie in it. These are people who went overseas supporting Islamic State and went there to provide support for people who basically want a caliphate,” he told the ABC.

“We won’t repatriate them. And indeed the government was taken to court by one of the non-government organisations saying that we had a responsibility and they weren’t successful in that.”

Asked whether it was “unfortunate” for children caught in the situation, Albanese said yes – but did not back down from his position.

“We have a very firm view that we won’t be providing assistance or repatriation. Of course, Australian law applies and there are obligations that Australian officials have, but we want to make it clear as well, as we have to the people involved, that if there are any breaches of the law then they will face the full force of the Australian law,” he said.

“Our security agencies have been monitoring – and continue to monitor – the situation in Syria to ensure they are prepared for any Australians seeking to return to Australia.”

The families of women turned back said they had no knowledge of the plan, and were unclear as to why it had not succeeded.

One father told Guardian Australia he only knew about the issue because of reporting from Syria that emerged late on Monday night.

- additional reporting from Nino Bucci