Shadow Home Affairs Minister Kristina Keneally has pressed a senior department official for answers over what it will take to repatriate Australian children facing perilous conditions in north-east Syria.
Aid groups estimate there are more than 40 children who remain in camps alongside women, around 30 kilometres from the Iraq border, since the fall of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in 2019.
Following the collapse of the terror group's presence, IS fighters and their families were rounded up by local Kurdish forces and sent to prisons, but their wives and children were sent to displacement camps.
Senator Keneally questioned Department of Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo during Senate Estimates about what it would take for Australia to reconsider its refusal to repatriate the cohort.
She said the government had international obligations to uphold and “ignoring them” would risk the “mental and physical trauma or even death of Australian children”.
“What will it take for the government to act to ensure these children are safe?” Senator Keneally asked.
Mr Pezzullo replied the department maintained policy conditions needed to be met for it to provide advice that “it’s safe to put in place a plan to get such people out".
This included the safety of the individuals being considered for repatriation, Australian staff conducting such an operation as well as the potential threat to “community safety” the arrivals could then pose.
Senator Keneally further asked Mr Pezzullo to specify what “condition” had not been satisfied to result in the Australian government's decision to not take action.
“What is the condition you cannot satisfy that would ensure you see that children in particular - who are in a most dangerous part of the world - are safe,” she said.
Mr Pezzullo replied: “From my point of view the conditions have not sufficiently changed on the ground."
Concerns for the group's safety were renewed recently when the ABC reported last month on the desperate pleas of a 17-year-old Australian inside a Syrian prison.
Department of Home Affairs official Andrew Kefford said they were “aware” of the reports, but had no further information about his welfare.
The 17-year-old boy said he suffered a head wound during an Apache helicopter attack on the prison in January and expressed fears for his life in an audio message to his family in Australia.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, with US air support, have since regained control of the ISIS-run prison.
There are about 60 women and children in the country claiming to have links to Australian citizenship, the Senate committee heard.
Mr Pezzullo also conceded he is "satisfied we have the legislative tools" needed to deal with repatriations if they did occur.
“It's really a question of risk appetite,” he said.
"I would draw a link to the director-general of security's reference to his concern and ASIO's concern about radicalisation and violent extremism amongst minors."
The estimates hearing also heard countries including Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland had conducted safe repatriations in recent months.
Save the Children's Mat Tinkler, managing director of international programs, said the Australian government had "really run out of excuses" not to conduct an evacuation mission.
"Our view is clear and that’s there is no practical or legal impediment to this - it is just a lack of political will," he told SBS News.
"We have real concern that an Australian child will die in these camps sooner or later."
United Nations human rights experts last week said - including Australia - urging them to repatriate nationals from the Al Hol and Roj camps.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported last November that Australian intelligence officials had travelled to Syria in a secret operation to gather information about the Australian families of IS fighters.
But officials refused to confirm this report, saying no one from their department had conducted such an operation.
