BURSTHundreds attended events in Sydney and Melbourne despite calls not to hold them on 7 October. Follow today’s news live
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Cabinet minister Clare O’Neil and shadow cabinet minister Michaelia Cash have clashed this morning over the circumstances surrounding the return of six Australians from a Syrian detention camp.
On Sunrise a little earlier the two traded barbs over whether the Australians were supported by the government in their return. The opposition is accusing Labor of a cover up over their return.
Here we have a group of people who were not offered any repatriation assistance by our government. So, as usual we’re seeing Michaelia trying to make a political issue out of something that doesn’t really make sense. Why was Michaelia in favour of it in 2019 but in 2025 she has all these issues and questions.
What is the issue Clare with saying the ISIS brides have returned? The children were not born in Australia. They were born overseas. They didn’t have any documents, they didn’t have a passport or birth certificate. The Australian government had to facilitate the giving of those documents to the children in order for them to come into Australia.
Today I joined the families of locals Surya McEwan and Hamish Paterson to express our anguish at Israel’s brutal torture of Surya, Hamish and my friend Juliet Lamont, Australian citizens who peacefully and legally tried to get baby formula, food and medical supplies to starving Palestinians in Gaza as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The families called for their local federal member Justine Elliot to end her silence on the abduction and torture of her constituents, and for Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to facilitate their immediate release and to investigate the dreadful allegations of mistreatment by Israel.
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