Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in strong support of the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015, which will help strengthen our ability to counter home-grown terrorism activity and make our community safer. This bill essentially provides for the cessation of Australian citizenship, including that obtained at birth, of a dual national where that person has been engaged in terrorist activities whether here and/or overseas. This, of course, is a very simplified summary and I will go into much more detail on some of the specific aspects of this bill.

I note the outstanding work done by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, chaired by my colleague and friend the member for Wannon. After extensive consideration, the bipartisan committee recommended that this legislation be passed, with finetuning of some aspects of the bill and a number of recommendations regarding reporting and enhancing transparency. I note that in the concluding statement of the report, it was stated:

The Committee supports the policy intention of the Bill to help protect the community from persons who have clearly renounced their allegiance to Australia by engaging in serious terrorism-related acts that harm Australians or Australian interests.

This statement goes to the heart of this legislation and really articulates why there is a strong degree of community support for this bill.

The feedback that I have had from my constituents is very clear—that those who engage in serious terrorism-related activities have, indeed, renounced their allegiance to Australia and, therefore, in the case of dual nationals, we have not only a right but a responsibility to revoke citizenship and deport or refuse re-entry to our country of anyone found to be engaged in such activity.

For many Australians the concept of 'allegiance to our nation' is something we rarely stop to consider. We are, by and large, a nation of fairly relaxed patriots and we live in a society where free speech is valued and where our rights and obligations are certainly not codified. Having a tilt at authority, questioning the government of the day—these are rights that are quintessentially Australian. I would certainly not support any legislation that diminished those rights.

Debate interrupted.

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