Prime Minister Tony Abbott says there is no time limit on Australia's military deployment to the Middle East to fight Islamic State.
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And he has left open the door to six Australian Hornet jets, which are currently bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq, expanding operations into Syria in the future.
The comments come after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced overnight on Tuesday that his nation's mission in the Middle East would be extended up to 12 months, until March 30, 2016, and that its mandate would be expanded to target Islamic State in Syrian territory, as well as Iraq.
Canada is the second Western nation after the United States to conduct strikes in Syria and like Australia, has six Hornets, a refuelling aircraft, a surveillance aircraft and a small team of special forces.
Other nations, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, have also conducted strikes in Syria against the terrorist group, also known as ISIL or Daesh.
Mr Abbott said that when Australia announced its decision to send a force to the Middle East last year, "we indicated that we expected that this job would take quite some time".
"We certainly didn't put a time limit on it, although obviously it is something which from time to time we review. As far as I am concerned, our people will stay in the Middle East fighting against the ISIL or Daesh death cult for as long as is necessary because, as we know, this is not just a threat to Iraq and Syria and the countries of the Middle East, this is a direct threat to Australia's national interests," he said.
"We have had two brushes with terrorism here in Australia that were plainly inspired by the death cult in the Middle East."
On the Syria deployment, Mr Abbott pointed out that Australia's refuelling aircraft in the area was already refuelling allied jets that are conducting strikes in Syria and would continue to do so.
We are not conducting air strikes in Syria at this time and we have no plans ourselves to do so. Nevertheless, as well as our six super Hornet strike fighters, we also have two other aircraft there, a refueler and an airborne control aircraft and they are certainly assisting with air operations throughout the theatre and that includes air operations in Syria," he said.
In October last year, Mr Abbott "counselled" against speculation Australia's mission could be expanded to Syria.
"Let's focus on what's been done today rather than speculate on what might be done in months or years to come. We are joining combat operations as part of a US-led Coalition in support of the Iraqi government," he said at the time.
Federal Labor has taken a bipartisan approach to the mission in Iraq but opposes Australian involvement in Syria.
In addition to the six Super Hornets, the tanker plan and the surveillance aircraft, Australia has about 200 special forces in a training role in Iraq while an in-principle decision has been taken to send about 300 "building partner capacity" trainers, in concert with a New Zealand deployment of about 140 people, to train Iraqi forces.
