Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The first duty of any government is ensuring the safety of its citizens. Whether it be protecting us from crime, combating foreign agents or cybercriminals who want to undermine our interests or defeating terrorists who want to destroy our way of life, defending our security must be our government's first priority.

This government has always understood that responsibility and has prosecuted it with commitment and relentless vigour. This is a government that has increased funding for law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies by $3 billion since 2013. This government is funding 100 more intelligence experts, more than 100 more tactical response and covert surveillance operators and a further 100 forensic specialists at the forefront of the fight against crime and terrorism. We have passed 18 tranches of national security legislation to strengthen our law enforcement and intelligence agencies and to give them the tools they need to deal with terrorists. We've given the ADF the power to target international terrorists with lethal force and we've given our law enforcement officers the power to arrest homegrown terrorists before their plots come to fruition. We've invested $45 million in counter-radicalisation programs to try to suppress these threats before they are fully developed; and, just last year, we committed an additional $513 million for the AFP to detect, deter and disrupt terror threats.

All of this has, sadly, been necessary because there are all too many people who are willing to benefit from our community's prosperity and protection while rejecting the mutual obligations to their fellow Australians that are fundamental to citizenship of this country. It is very difficult to believe some of the things that Australians have allegedly been capable of.

The first Australian to have his citizenship removed under the provisions that this bill, the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Cessation) Bill 2019, addresses was Sydney man Khaled Sharrouf. Mr Sharrouf was involved in a terrorist plot in 2005 in which he helped gather guns, ammunition and equipment to make bombs for use in attacking his fellow Australians. Having served his sentence for that crime, he left, as early as 2013, to join ISIS and gained notoriety around the world for posting truly disturbing images of his nine-year-old son involved in the gruesome violence around Raqqa.

In total, around 230 Australians have travelled to Syria or Iraq to fight for and support the Islamic State terrorist group. They have done so despite that group's self-confessed involvement in burning alive innocent people; in throwing others from tall buildings, on the basis of their sexuality; and in systematic slavery and sexual abuse of women from ethnic minority groups. In doing so, many have directly fought against this country's closest allies and even risked the lives of dedicated servicemen and women of our ADF. There is no doubt that this represents a fundamental rejection of Australian values and a repudiation of everything that our community holds dear.

Perhaps worse, however, there are dozens of Australians who have been convicted of preparing or executing acts of terrorism on our own shores, which, in the words of convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika, were designed to cause maximum damage to our way of life. There were 54 people in jail in Australia at the beginning of this year on such terrorism offences. These include individuals who were close personal connections of Osama bin Laden, who created detailed handbooks to teach others how to execute terrorist attacks or who were stockpiling explosives for use in our capital cities. In total, as of last year, 75 people have been convicted of terrorism offences in Australia and 30 more remain before the courts.

The reality is that to commit a crime of that nature is to utterly reject Australia and all it stands for. It is to spurn the society of your fellow Australians. In committing these crimes, these individuals have told us that they have no interest in being a contributing part of our community. I doubt any right-minded person in Australia would want to keep them here after such a violent and fundamental rejection of our very way of life. That is why the government introduced its 2015 amendments to the Australian Citizenship Act. These ensured that where the government could do so without breaching its obligations under international law, Australian citizenship would be stripped from those who have so fundamentally rejected their reciprocal obligations to fellow Australians. To date it has been successful, and the minister has previously stated that more than a dozen such individuals have had their citizenship revoked.

However, the threat remains. In total, 250 Australian passports have been cancelled or refused because of the applicant's connection to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. In the middle of last year there were 80 further Australians in Syria and Iraq connected to those conflicts who had not returned but who may try to do so in the future. As I've mentioned, there are also around 50 Australians in custody in Australia who have been convicted of terrorism offences, and arrest warrants are outstanding for a further 39 who are currently overseas. Since 2014 our law enforcement agencies have disrupted 17 major terrorist plots. In short, today, the threat is as alive as ever. We must constantly update and improve the protections that are available to the government to keep Australians safe, to prevent future terrorist attacks and to meet the community's expectation that this government will not accept into our society those who would seek to harm our way of life from within.

The bill before the House today does just that. It provides the Minister for Home Affairs with discretion to revoke the citizenship of any dual national who has been part of a declared terrorist organisation overseas or who has been convicted of a terrorism offence and sentenced to three years imprisonment, rather than the six years currently in force. Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon, if you ask most Australians, there is no such thing as a minor terrorism offence. This bill will ensure that the minister can meet the community's expectations in dealing with any individual who plans acts of terrorism. Secondly, the bill expands the period of time from which an individual's actions can be taken into account when deciding whether to revoke their citizenship. Once again, for most ordinary Australians it does not matter in the least whether an individual planned a terrorist attack aimed at killing their fellow Australians in 2016 or 2006. What is important is that that individual has rejected their fellowship with other Australians and rejected our community's way of life. Once again, by allowing the minister to take terrorism offences and activities in an overseas terrorist organisation into account going all the way back to May 2003, this bill will allow the minister to respond appropriately to community expectations.

I'm certain that this Minister for Home Affairs will fully meet those expectations. The minister was a Queensland police officer for a decade, protecting not only Queenslanders through the drug and sex offender squads but all Australians through his service in the National Crime Authority. The minister saw and combated the worst of crime in our society and he understands what works. That knowledge and that experience have been manifest in his tireless and resolute work on national security to date. The minister has overseen the cancellations of visas for more than 5,000 dangerous criminals and kept our borders secure year after year. I know that he will use this discretion authority with firmness and discretion.

However, it is important that these safeguards are in place to ensure that this henceforth discretionary power is used appropriately not only by this minister but by all ministers for home affairs to come. To that end, the bill contains three such safeguards. First, under the bill, the minister must inform a person who has had their citizenship revoked either immediately or within five years where there is a national security reason to delay the provision of that information. The individual can then apply under the bill to the minister to request that their citizenship not be cancelled, and the Commonwealth must ensure that natural justice is afforded to them to make representations on their case. Second, judicial review will be available to individuals who have had their citizenship revoked. Third, the minister must report regularly to the parliament and to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on how they have used these new discretionary powers.

All of these provisions and the others laid out in the bill were based on recommendations of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor in its report into the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Act 2015, commissioned by this government. They will ensure the effectiveness of this regime and they will ensure that accountability, fairness and justice are preserved.

The coalition knows what it takes to keep Australians safe and, critically, we listen to the experts about the best ways to do this. With this bill we are demonstrating that yet again. We need to send an ongoing message to those who would threaten our community and reject our way of life. To fight overseas for terrorist groups against Australia's national interest or to plan or execute acts of terrorism that harm fellow citizens or the infrastructure on which we rely are actions that Australians will not tolerate. There is no such thing as a minor terrorism offence, and there is no expiry date on our nation's rightful rejection of those of our own who seek to harm Australia or Australians.

This bill gives the minister greater discretion to meet our community's expectations and to remove individuals from among us where they have shattered this common bond and opposed our shared values. Wherever the opportunity exists, we need to protect our citizens from those who would do us harm. However, equally the bill gives the minister discretion to take individual circumstances into account and to decide on a case-by-case basis whether citizenship should be revoked. It also ensures that there are provisions to allow the reinstatement of an individual's citizenship where it is in the national interest or following judicial review.

Australians expect all of us in this place to help keep them safe, and they expect us to treat them fairly and within the law. That is our duty, and it is a duty that the Liberal-National coalition resolutely and steadfastly embrace. In improving Australia's processes for withdrawing the citizenship of those who have rejected our way of life, this bill makes an important contribution to our ability to fulfil that duty, and I commend it to the House.

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