Suspected Australian ISIS fighters detained in Iraq will face the “full force of the law” if they return home, Health Minister Mark Butler says, insisting the government will not assist them to come back but warning constitutional limits mean Australian citizens cannot be permanently barred from re-entering the country.
The comments come after reports 13 Australian men suspected of fighting for ISIS could be released from Iraqi prisons.
Speaking on Sunrise on Friday, Mr Butler said Australia’s intelligence and security agencies had been managing the issue of returning foreign fighters for more than a decade and would enforce the country’s toughest national security laws if the men returned.
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‘Full force of the law’
Mr Butler said the government would not help the men return to Australia, but authorities were prepared to respond if they crossed the border.
“These men certainly will not be getting any assistance from the government to try to come back home,” he said.
“And if they do cross our borders, they’ll be met with the full force of the law, including the possibility of charges being laid, as has happened to the women.”
Mr Butler said the legal framework currently being used was introduced under the former Coalition government with Labor’s bipartisan support, including temporary exclusion orders and powers to prosecute Australians accused of committing offences overseas.
He said while many Australians would question why suspected ISIS members could return at all, governments were constrained by the Constitution.
“There are very strict constitutional limitations on what we can do when citizens try to come back home,” he said.
“Those laws go right to the limit of those Commonwealth powers.”
Coalition demands answers
Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Jane Hume, said Labor needed to be more transparent about how it would deal with the men if they were released and returned to Australia.
“You can’t simply deal with this as a political problem. This is a national security problem,” she said.
Ms Hume argued the government needed to outline exactly what would happen if the men arrived in Australia, saying it could not simply rely on refusing assistance for their return.
“What we want to know is what is the plan for these people? If they are going to come back to Australia, well what are you going to do with them? Do they pose a danger to the country?”
Mr Butler rejected suggestions the government lacked a strategy, saying it was applying the same national security framework developed under the previous Coalition government.
“We’re applying the same plans that were developed under your time in government by the security agencies,” he said.
“We didn’t fight politics with this. We recognised this as a complex issue of national security … and of course that’s what we’ll do.”
