Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian government is determined to do whatever it can in the Syrian and Iraqi situation to have a balanced approach of military intervention to try to get rid of this death cult. It is nice to hear for once the Australian Greens acknowledging that ISIS is a death cult—I hope at least that that was acknowledged or implicit in the question. What we will do is work with the United Nations to determine which 12,000 people are most in need for resettlement.

Unfortunately, the circumstances of that particular mother in Syria are as heart rending as literally thousands of other individual cases in Syria and in camps in Jordan and in Turkey. And there are also those in Lebanon who are effectively in camps albeit not formally so. I say to the Australian Greens that this is an issue on which this government did not just run around and pluck a figure out of the air as some others have done. We sent Mr Dutton to Europe to seek information from the UNHCR and try to determine the best way to help. We have now come up with a well-rounded policy which I think most people will consider to be compassionate. As I said the other day, the genuine compassion includes kindness plus judgement. In this case we have tried to do the very best—which is the way Australia has dealt with these matters over many decades. (Time expired)