MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
DUTTON'S CITIZENSHIP LOSS BILL GIVES A WIN TO TERRORISTS
Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison are trying to rush legislation through the parliament that could result in terrorists taking the Australian Government to the High Court and winning.
The Committee heard expert evidence that the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional, would not survive a High Court challenge, and risked completely destroying the Governments ability to revoke the citizenship of any terrorist.
Labor always puts the safety of Australians first and approaches national security in a bipartisan manner. There is nothing more important than keeping Australians safe.
We have worked cooperatively with this government on 19 national security bills since the 2013 election, and made hundreds of amendments to make those bills stronger and more effective.
Labor will issue a minority report on this bill on the basis that the government has made no efforts to show it is constitutional. Labor stands ready to negotiate on other parts of the bill which do not risk a High Court challenge.
In 2015, George Brandis lied about the Solicitor-Generals advice on the Allegiance to Australia law being constitutional and we only found out a year later. How can we trust this government?
Peter Dutton has already stuffed up the removal of the terrorist Neil Prakash's Australian citizenship. He has proven himself too incompetent to remove the citizenship of terrorists under existing laws. These new laws practically guarantee he will stuff up more cases, and could result in the Government losing all of its powers to remove citizenship. This would be undermine our national security, and Labor wont risk it.
Labor wants convicted terrorists kicked out and kept out of Australia not fighting the Government in the High Court.
Eminent constitutional experts Peter Hanks QC, George Williams and Kim Rubenstein have all indicated that this legislation would be likely to fail a High Court challenge.
Without proof that this law is workable, it looks remarkably like nothing but a vanity project for Mr Dutton that could do enormous damage.
We stand by our record. Over more than five years, Labor has worked cooperatively with the three Liberal prime ministers to strengthen and improve every single national security bill put forward.
The Government has walked away from that proud tradition of bipartisanship to try to revive Peter Dutton's shrivelled political career. Labor is putting Australia's national security ahead of Peter Dutton's vanity and Scott Morrison should too.
THURSDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2019
