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

I want to say thank you very much to the member for Wannon. He chairs the intelligence committee in this place—a bipartisan committee and a very important committee indeed.

The government announced earlier this year that we would introduce legislation which would strip dual citizens of their Australian citizenship if they had been involved in a terrorist related activity and if that would not render that person stateless. There are safeguards recommended by the committee, and I commend all of the members of the committee. There were 27 recommendations in total, accepted in all by the government. I believe we have improved the legislation and it is of great benefit to the national security of this country.

As all members in this place know there are over 400 high-priority counterterrorism cases currently being managed by our security agencies. Since September of last year, when the National Terrorism Public Alert Level was raised to high, 26 people have been charged as a result of 10 terrorism related operations. That is more than one-third of all terrorism related charges since 2001.

I think that as all Australians have seen through the events in Sydney and Melbourne, and also from what they have seen in France and elsewhere across the world, the threat of terrorism is not going to diminish in our lifetimes. Governments need to be prepared to deal with that threat. Whether it is stopping young 14- or 15-year-olds at the border from leaving our shores to go to fight in Syria or Iraq and then eventually to return to our shores even more radicalised, or if it means putting further investments into our agencies—including the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Border Force and the intelligence agencies—then this government is prepared to make that investment.

This legislation goes to trying to give an extra ability to the agencies to identify those people who may have broken their allegiance with this country and who, because of their own actions, have in essence renounced their own citizenship. This is a significant piece of legislation. I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition and my opposite number for their support in relation to this bill. We will continue to work together in the nation's best interest. No doubt, there will be further collaborations, because the threat will increase and it will be incumbent upon governments to make sure that we put in place measured pieces of legislation which will ensure the safety of our people.

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