The controversy surrounding Prime Minister Albanese’s handling of national security raises a simple but uncomfortable question: is Australia serious about security, or only serious when it is politically convenient? Are votes now being prioritised over Australian values and public safety?

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke warned that Pauline Hanson’s comments about Muslims carry a “national security angle” and could inflame violence. Yet earlier this year, he also assured Australians that authorities “know the state of mind” of the women and children linked to ISIS camps in Syria and that extensive risk assessments had been completed. But intelligence agencies assess probabilities, not certainties. The consequences of being wrong in this instance would not be administrative embarrassment. They would be borne in blood as the antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach during Hanukkah demonstrated.

That confidence is astonishing, especially given that the first report handed down by the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion suggests otherwise.

These individuals did not accidentally end up in ISIS territory. Many voluntarily travelled to join a terrorist organisation that openly declared war on Australia and the West. ISIS was defined by mass murder, beheadings and barbarity. There was never any ambiguity about what it represented.

So why did the government not pursue every available legal avenue to prevent their return? Parliament has shown it can move quickly when it chooses to. It simply requires the political will.

If inflammatory rhetoric is considered a national security threat, then voluntarily aligning with a genocidal terror movement must surely be treated as something far more serious.

The opposition would almost certainly have supported stronger exclusion powers, injunctions or legislative amendments to stop ISIS-linked families from returning. Those are not extreme measures. They are tools available to any government serious about its most fundamental........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)