Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowan for his question. He has served his country in uniform and he does a great job in this chamber on behalf of the people from his electorate.

As we have said in this place before, and as the intelligence agencies have pointed out, our country faces an unprecedented threat from terrorism. It is a sad reality. We have seen in the United States action by extremists again overnight. We have seen a number of cases on our television screens across recent months, in Western democracies, of actions which have threatened the peace and good harmony within societies. As a country, we ourselves, sadly, have experienced this in Sydney and Melbourne. ASIO advise that there are 400 high-priority cases that they are dealing with at the moment, and we have 110 people who are fighting in the Middle East and, we believe, 150 here in Australia who are supporting in different ways those that might be overseas or are preparing for acts themselves.

That is why this government has expressed its absolute determination, and a consistency in that determination, to stare down this threat. We have said for a long period of time that we believe that we should look at what other nations are doing, including the United Kingdom, where since 2006 they have been able to take citizenship away—whilst not rendering people stateless—from 28 individuals, stopping those people returning to the United Kingdom, because those people, having been further radicalised and coming back into the United Kingdom, would have presented a great threat to those people who want to go about their lives in a free way in the United Kingdom.

What have we done in this country? We have worked very hard with the intelligence agencies and with the law enforcement agencies to come up with the best approach possible to try and keep the Australian people safe. We believe very strongly that, if people are terrorists, are dual nationals and are fighting overseas, they should not come back to this country. We have been clear and determined in that focus.

As the Prime Minister referred to earlier, I was completely amazed by the contribution from the member opposite, the shadow Attorney-General, in the press this morning, because the Leader of the Opposition, when given the opportunity in this place only several sitting days ago, claimed that this approach was a dog whistle. That is the response. He said that he regretted those words and he stepped away from them to say that he would support the bill—the proposal—that the government is putting forward. But then, in a remarkable turn of events this morning, Mr Dreyfus has been out to say somehow that it is a good idea to bring these terrorists back to our country.

Mr Champion interjecting—

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