Those who believe the reign of terror is over in Iran are sadly mistaken. The terror will go on just perpetrated by someone else. Last month Donald Trump said he stood with the Iranian people when they rose up in protest and then he watched on while they were massacred in their thousands by the regime.

Ayatollah Ali Khomeini had recently named Ali Larijani as his successor because although Trump said more talks were due to take place next week, he sensed with the US military build-up that this was eerily similar to the lead-up to the attack on Iraq in 2003. Except Trump did not bother to make a case before the United Nations or even his own Congress. Even his deputy J.D. Vance has gone very silent.

Just as in Zimbabwe, the tyrant Robert Mugabe was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwe, a leader who also had blood on his hands, Khomeini’s successor played a huge role in the recent slaughter of protesters.

Trump thinks the American military is a toy with which to play. Putin thought the same about the Russian armed forces in 2022. They have both mired themselves in ongoing conflict the consequences of which the rest of the world will have to bear.

The conservative commentariat is free to call the PM a liar, but what are the real facts about the Isis brides and migration?

There are 11 women and 23 children involved. Those that are citizens are entitled by law to have an Australian passport unless ASIO and the security authorities have evidence that could preclude this from happening. To argue that the Albanese government would ignore the advice of these authorities is not only fanciful, but is mischief-making and divisive on security issues which Australia’s leaders have shown bipartisanship since Federation in 1901.

To give perspective to this debate there is no hiding the fact that the Morrison government allowed 40 Isis members back into this country including adult male fighters.

On migration, in 1996, when John Howard came to office, net overseas migration (NOM) was below 100,000. When Howard lost his seat and the election in 2007 it was 244,000. That is, it had increased by more than 144 per cent, or to well above double the intake. In the pre-Covid years that followed, NOM dropped to about 225,000 a year.

When COVID hit in 2019 numbers plunged. They dropped 139,000 in 2020-2021. They peaked at 540,000 in 2023. It was Morrison’s Coalition cabinet which included Angus Taylor as Treasurer that accepted this figure as viable to address the loss of migrants. Now they try to pin it on the Labor government with their slogan of “numbers too high, standards too low”.

Intake is now falling fast. In 2023-24, NOM declined to about 430,000, and in 2024-25 was a little over 300,000. The government forecasts it will be around 260,000 this financial year, and 235,000 a year in the longer term, which is about on a par with what it was pre-pandemic, and a little lower than the number when John Howard was voted out of office.