George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much indeed for that question, Senator Fawcett. Yes, I can advise the Senate about that. A little while ago, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and I announced some proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act which will be introduced by the minister in the House of Representatives tomorrow; and those amendments will then be referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for review over the winter recess and for report in the spring sittings of the parliament.

The new laws will strip citizenship from dual-national Australian citizens who serve or fight for terrorist groups or who engage in specified terrorism related conduct or who are convicted of specified terrorism related offences. The laws will only apply to dual citizens, so they cannot result in any solely Australian citizen being rendered stateless. The laws do not depend on the exercise of ministerial discretion; they operate according to the principles of renunciation by conduct whereby a person, by their own act of engaging in a specified terrorist activity, surrenders their citizenship of Australia, or upon the conviction of a person by a court for a specified terrorism related offence under the Criminal Code.

This is a matter of the greatest seriousness. This is the most serious matter that Australia faces. Whether it be under a coalition government or a Labor government, this is the most serious challenge we face, and we have to get it right. We have to have strong and effective laws, consistent with the rule of law, and that is what we announced a short while ago.