A Newspoll conducted for The Australian has found 59 per cent of 1634 voters polled last week are opposed to the repatriation from Syria of Islamic State wives and children who hold Australian citizenship.
Some 20 Australian women and 46 children are trapped in refugee camps in northern Syria, but the federal government has called the situation ‘too dangerous’ for defence troops to retrieve them.
Home Affairs Department secretary Mike Pezzullo said in the hearing yesterday “it would have been much better, of course, for certain adults not to have made certain decisions to travel”.