Senator Probes Whether Returned ‘ISIS Brides’ Eligible for Taxpayer-Backed Welfare

‘Some refugees from Syria, for instance, depending on the visa class that they’re issued ... may be eligible for special benefit payments,’ says one official.

A man walks into a Medicare and Centrelink office at Bondi Junction in Sydney, Australia, on March 21, 2016. Matt King/Getty Images

South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle has questioned a social security official over the potential welfare cost to taxpayers for returning “ISIS brides” and their children.

During a Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee hearing on Oct. 10, Liddle probed Matt Flavel, deputy secretary of social security, on what payments the women and children could be eligible for in Australia.

Flavel said there wasn’t a specific category of payment for their situation, but there were options available that typical migrants might access.

“We’ve seen that before ... some refugees from Syria, for instance, depending on the visa class that they’re issued with ... may be eligible for special benefit payments,” Flavel said.

“But that is a decision, obviously, for the Department of Home Affairs in terms of the issuing of the visa that then triggers the eligibility for a special benefit,” he said.

The term “ISIS brides” refers to women who either willingly left Australia to assist the ISIS terror group, or who claim to have been coerced. Some married while in Syria, or followed their partners over.

Flavel also noted that whether the current crop of women and children were still considered Australian citizens was a factor in social security options, as well as how much money they had.

The deputy secretary was not able to immediately answer questions around whether the returned ISIS party had so far accessed Australian social security payments.

“If they are Australian residents, then there'll be a particular set of things subject to a whole lot of other eligibility requirements they could be eligible for,” Flavel said.

“If they’re not, then clearly they would be subject to the same sorts of waiting periods that newly arrived residents have.”

The questions around cost to taxpayers comes as the federal government faces scrutiny for its role in the return of two women and four children who smuggled themselves from Syria to Lebanon after the fall of ISIS, and then returned to Australia.

A woman walks in the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh province, where tens of thousands of mostly women and children linked to the ISIS terrorist group have been living for years, on Jan. 30, 2025. Bernat Armangue/AP Photo

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has criticised the government for its alleged secrecy around the return of the brides, and has accused the government of assisting with their repatriation.

But Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke responded saying “everything that was just described as ‘assistance’ by the Leader of the Opposition would have been an offence for the government to not do.”

“These individuals received what they were entitled to by law. No more and no less.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the government played no role in their return.