Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to reports the government is preparing to strip a dual national of Australian citizenship for the first time and that it expects the legislation to be challenged in the High Court. Is this the same legislation where a letter the Attorney-General provided to the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security incorrectly represented advice from the Solicitor-General?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All of us understand that the shadow Attorney-General likes to engage in a sort of Guthrie Featherstone QC MP versus Rumpole debate with the Attorney-General. I think we know that those two learned gentlemen do not entirely see eye to eye and there is from time to time what can be best described as a disturbance in the bar common room. The less erudite members of the parliament—that is to say, all the rest of us—are happy to let these great advocates get on with it. We are happy to let them do it. But what the shadow Attorney-General is now doing is taking his feud with the Attorney-General into an area where he is putting our national security at risk. He knows that the PJCIS—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left will cease interjecting. I call the Manager of Opposition Business, and I want to hear his point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on direct relevance, you have previously with preambles been critical and said it opens the gate in terms of what will be allowed under direct relevance. This question asked very simply whether it was the same piece of legislation, and the relevance rule, accordingly, given your previous rulings, should be much tighter than where the current Prime Minister is going.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the point of the Manager of Opposition Business. I listened to the question very carefully; it had a lot of content. The Manager of Opposition Business will also be aware it covered a couple of subject matters. He will also be aware of my previous statements to this House that where tough questions are asked I allow them, and I allow tough answers as well. The Prime Minister is in order.

Mr Snowdon interjecting —

The member for Lingiari is warned!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is nothing more important than we maintain a bipartisan solidarity in defence of the security of this country. There is nothing more important than the shadow Attorney-General gets over his spat with the Attorney-General and focuses on the real issue—which is not the dispute in the bar—which is ensuring that our laws keep us safe and give our police and our intelligence services and our ministers the powers to keep us safe, and we have seen him today stirring up an issue about the powers to revoke citizenship from terrorists. This is a very important power. He sat on the parliamentary joint committee. He brought his legal eminence to that committee. If he has a concern, he should be raising it within that committee or, if he can bear to speak to him, raising it with the Attorney-General or the minister. Of course, it does not stop there. This man went on last night to release a letter to me, which the Attorney-General has replied to at my request, again raising questions about other security legislation and the disagreement with the Solicitor-General. Once again, a responsible would-be Attorney-General would be raising those issues in the committee with a common bipartisan effort to get the laws right. I just say to the Leader of the Opposition: we can well understand these great men of the bar do not see eye to eye, but they should put our safety first.