Interview with Jayne Azzopardi, The Today Show, Channel Nine

JAYNE AZZOPARDI, HOST: A large group of Australian ISIS brides and their children in Syria wanting to head home have been turned around overnight. Officials say it is only a matter of hours or days before they try again. Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth and Liberal Senator Dave Sharma join me now to discuss today's headlines. Amanda, can you bring us up to date? What is the current state of play and will the Australian Government help bring these Australians home?

AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Well, I need to be very clear that the Australian Government won't be assisting people trying to get to the country from Syria. We've been very clear that we won't, and we will not help these people. Of course, our security agencies are monitoring the situation in Syria, but there won't be assistance from the Australian Government.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: But if these people are Australians, how can we not help them?

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, of course, they made a choice to go to Syria. We won't be repatriating them from Syria. Of course, as Australian citizens, under the law, they are able to make their way back, but our Australian authorities are monitoring that. And if they've committed any crime and they come back to Australia, then they'll face the full force of the law.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: And you're comfortable with that answer, knowing it includes children, who you're saying Australians made the choice to go there. Did the kids?

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Look, we won't be able to assist, and we will not assist these people from Syria.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: David, there are children among this group. Do we have a responsibility to those Australian kids?

DAVE SHARMA, LIBERAL SENATOR: Well, our first responsibility is to the safety and security of our nation and the people here. And as Amanda says, these people made a choice against all the advice of Government and authorities at the time, knowing what they were going into. Now, I don't want to see them punished unnecessarily or treated cruelly, but we've got to recognise that these people have been, not only went overseas to fight for a terrorist organisation or to accompany people to do so, but have been effectively living in a terrorist camp for the last nine or ten years. I would want a lot of assurances before any of these people return to Australia. And I think the Australian people deserve to know exactly what those assurances are, what monitoring is being put in place, what vetting is being done, what are our intelligence agencies doing about this.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: Yeah, absolutely. If they do come here and they are living in the community, the government would need to be on top of that. Speaking of people coming to this country, this time from other countries, we're learning more about that secret hard-line immigration policy that Sussan Ley was working on before she was ousted. David, have you seen the policy? What do you think of it?

DAVE SHARMA: Well, I don't- look, I'm not aware of a secret hard-line policy, to put it in quotation marks. I haven't seen the policy, but I'm aware that it's an immigration policy that's based around values, not around any other attribute, and based upon the needs and national interests of Australia, where we've got skills shortages, where we need more people in construction, where we need more tradies, those sorts of things. But which will also bring the number of people down, because I think it's recognised across politics now that we have had too many people arrive into Australia in the last few years, sometimes for good reasons, but it's put a huge strain on infrastructure, on services and on housing.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: Yeah, you've obviously read the policy in the paper, though, today, I'm sure, if you hadn't seen it before.

DAVE SHARMA: I've seen the headline.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: I mean, the headline part of it is a ban on people from known terrorist areas in 13 specific countries, mainly Middle Eastern and African countries. So that's put out there as a hard-line immigration policy. Angus Taylor is vowing to be tough on immigration. Can he be tougher than that?

DAVE SHARMA: Well, I cannot say that what I've seen in the newspapers today actually reflects our policy. It doesn't reflect what I know of our policy. I'm not in the shadow cabinet. I don't have the answers to all of this.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: Who would have put it out there, then, do you think? Is it someone trying to harm Angus Taylor to make his job harder?

DAVE SHARMA: Look, potentially, but I would just be speculating here. But as far as I'm aware, our policy is not going to single out any particular regional group of people. All it's going to say is a pretty common-sense statement that if people want to move to Australia, we expect them to abide by, uphold and support Australian values. Exactly what they say when they take the Pledge of Allegiance when they become citizens.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: OK. Amanda, the Opposition clearly coming after you on immigration. Are we letting too many people into the country?

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, first I would say that Angus Taylor can't have a policy that is based on a vibe. He's got to have a specific policy with specific details. We already see him walking away from the existing policy that was developed that everyone is disavowing now. So the question for them really is how to work in a way that has details with that policy? And that's exactly what we're doing. We have seen a 45 per cent decrease in our net migration numbers since the COVID peak, which I might add was under coalition policy settings. We've seen our net migration reduced by 40 per cent over the year. But we have to ensure that we do get the workers we need and that we do have a balanced migration system.

We've got details. We are doing the work. Angus Taylor can't get by on a vibe. It is the hard policy work that he needs to do. And if he wants to be taken seriously, it has to be more than a vibe.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: I think we're going to be talking about that a lot more. But let's talk about something we can all agree on now. Australia punching well above its weight at the Winter Olympic Games. Check out this clip that Scotty James posted to Instagram.

[Excerpt]

SCOTTY JAMES, AUSTRALIAN SNOWBOARDER: All right, I've found some other Aussies in Livigno. Let's go! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

[End of excerpt]

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: How good are our five Olympics!

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Look, what a wonderful inspiration story. We're not known for obviously our winter sports, but most successful Winter Olympics ever. What a great outcome.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: You're a fan?

DAVE SHARMA: It's astonishing. To see us above the medal table over Canada, for instance …

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: I know.

DAVE SHARMA:... at least as of last night, amazing.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: Canadians not happy. Amanda, Dave, thank you.