Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Repudiation) Bill 2023. As the shadow minister, Senator Paterson, has articulately stated, the coalition acknowledges: this is an incredibly important piece of legislation and one that, in the ordinary circumstances of events, should be carefully drafted to protect the Australian community. However, wow! What a roller-coaster ride in relation to national security—the protection of Australia and Australians—we have seen, courtesy of Mr Albanese and the Labor government, over the last three weeks.

There's a reason we are talking about this bill today: because it is nothing more and nothing less than a cover for the government's failings in relation to the NZYQ case. I'll put it in plain English. It was a decision that applied to one person that was based on one person's facts; so the orders related to one person. The government, in its panic mode, released in excess of 140 hard-core criminals into our community, onto our streets—rapists, murderers, paedophiles and a contract killer—putting the rights of people who have no right to be here in Australia before the protection, the safety and the security of the Australian people. But then again, that is the Australian Labor Party under Mr Albanese.

Now, as Senator Paterson has said, in the interests of improving this bill for all Australians, the coalition will be putting forward a number of what we say are small amendments but incredibly serious amendments which will actually strengthen the bill we have before us. I have circulated them.

In the first instance, what is the biggest deficiency in this bill? Well, because the government has decided to rush the legislation through the House and we now have it in the Senate today, the most deficient part of this bill—for anybody who might be interested in terrorists—is that this bill does not deal with historical cases like Benbrika and others. So let's be very clear about what this bill does not do. The government likes to front the Australian people and say: 'This is a bill that—'. Well, let's be very clear what this bill does not do. It does not deal with historical cases like Mr Benbrika and will only deal with future terrorism cases. So Mr Benbrika—let's be under no illusion: he is Australia's most serious ever convicted terrorist—has had his citizenship restored; he will remain an Australian citizen. And that means a whole lot of options are taken off the table, like deportation. Just remember that Mr Benbrika is due to be released in a few weeks' time. He is Australia's most serious ever convicted terrorist. The bill we have before us, let's be very clear, does not deal with that.

The bill also has a number of very clear gaps. When Senator Paterson and I were presented with the bill yesterday, at first blush and first glance we were able to identify very, very quickly what those gaps were. So the Leader of the Opposition, someone who, at all times, puts the safety and security of Australians first and foremost, has written to the Prime Minister today. He has said to the Prime Minister that they are simple amendments and that they will go some way to correcting the more obvious gaps in the bill. They are not a complete fix—as I said, the bill doesn't deal with Australia's most notorious convicted terrorist—but they will address some of the deficiencies in the legislation.

Let's quickly put that into context. What this bill currently says is that under Mr Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of this country, if you are a person who goes overseas to murder other Australians then that is not enough to cancel your citizenship—a person who goes overseas to murder other Australians. Second is something that Labor's bill doesn't do: if you are a person who engages in torture or who goes overseas to rape children, again, Anthony Albanese, as Prime Minister of this country, says that is not enough to allow the minister to go to court and say: 'Actually, this person has raped a child overseas. We don't think they should be an Australian citizen.' No, under Mr Albanese, that's not in the bill.

Under this bill, if you are a person who goes to train with a foreign military or engage with military arms-trafficking across borders, or who urges violence against some Australians, I would say, Senator Paterson would say and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, would certainly say, that these are some of the clearest possible repudiations of your allegiance to Australia. But guess what? It's all okay, because Anthony Albanese, as Prime Minister of this country, and the Australian Labor Party, have brought forward a bill that says it doesn't matter if you do any of this; you will still be able to keep your citizenship.

One might say: 'Hey, hold on, they're pretty obvious omissions. Good grief! I hope the coalition puts forward amendments to address that.' I would've thought the Australia public would be listening to this and saying: 'I hope someone's putting forward amendments, because if the government's not, is there someone in this place who actually cares about the safety and security of Australians? Is someone prepared to say, "If you go overseas and you rape children, if you go overseas and you murder Australians, perhaps that is a renunciation and a repudiation of everything that we value dearly as Australians."' But not Mr Albanese, because the bill doesn't have that. Why? They were rushed; they put forward a draft version of this bill on Monday morning. My understanding is that they've gone through around 21 versions since, and they didn't put the finishing touches on this version until after 5 pm yesterday. So what they've come up with is undercooked, has gaps and does not keep Australians safe. But why? It's because the Minister for Home Affairs, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, and the Prime Minister have been caught flatfooted on this issue.

Let's look at what they've had to do. 'Hey, look over here!'—they've used a great deflection tactic, 'Let's suggest that Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, intervened to grant NZYQ a visa.' I'd say to the Australian people, 'Don't always believe what comes out of the Prime Minister's mouth.' In fact, I'd say, 'Don't ever believe what comes out of the relevant ministers' mouths,' because, you see, Labor know that's not true. They know that if anyone bothers to scratch the surface, these are the facts: when the coalition came to government—just for those who've forgotten—we inherited from Labor 30,000 people who were put into the community on bridging visas. Why? Because our detention centres were full. Why? Because under the former Labor-Greens alliance in excess of 50,000 people arrived here by boat. So what did we do when we got in? We had a legacy case load and inherited 30,000 people who were put in the community on bridging visas.

It didn't stop there. We had to clean up the mess. Why did we have to clean up the mess? Remember that Labor hate one of the pillars of Operation Sovereign Borders—temporary protection visas. When we came into office in 2013 we had to reintroduce temporary protection visas because Labor had abolished them. They say one thing about Peter Dutton, but let's look at the facts. In order to clean up this mess assessments needed to be done on individual claims for protection. Guess what? This is what the law said: you couldn't determine what to do with one of Labor's 30,000 until their status had been determined—in other words, were they found to be owed protection or not and could they be deported to their country of origin? This is what Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton and we were dealing with.

What then had to happen as an operation of the law if you wanted to go down a certain path? At staged periods in time the minister—legal quote—lifted the bar to allow a certain number of people to make this application to have their protection claims assessed. Shame on Mr Albanese, the Prime Minister of this country, for endorsing on behalf of his government what are effectively total, complete and utter lies—some might say 'lies' or 'mistruths'—to the Australian people in relation to Peter Dutton. This is not the issuing of a visa. If the Australian Labor Party think it is, that is even worse, because they don't know immigration law. Perhaps that's why Australia is currently in the mess that it is in. I defy Mr Albanese to stand before the Australian people and take them through the process that our former government had to go through because of what the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments did over a number of years. He knows that there's a big difference, but a little bit of political rhetoric is suiting them at this point in time.

We had to lift the bar for a number of large cohorts. Let us be very clear here. The minister did not deal with individual cases at this point in the process. Again Mr Albanese knows this, Ms O'Neil knows this and Mr Giles knows this, but the truth is not convenient to the political rhetoric to hide the complete, total and utter botching the Australian Labor Party and the Albanese Labor government have done in relation to the NZYQ case.

Again let us be very clear. Because of 50,000 people coming here illegally by boat—and I don't have time to talk about the 1,200 who died at sea under Labor—without lifting the bar to enable people's claims to be assessed the government could not determine what to do with them. That is a fact. One of the potential options was deportation—in other words, if they could be returned to their country of origin.

Let's be very clear. Mr Albanese as Prime Minister of this country knows it is false to suggest that Mr Dutton intervened to grant NZYQ a visa. They are the facts under immigration law. They are the facts of the mess that the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments left us. Over 50,000 illegal arrivals came to this country under their watch. The Prime Minister, Minister O'Neil and Minister Giles should be ashamed of themselves for deliberately misleading the Australian public. If they are not deliberately misleading, it is even worse, quite frankly, because Minister Giles and Minister O'Neil then should not be in their portfolios. It is as simple as that.

This is just as embarrassing. It is an embarrassing attempt to distract from the complete incompetence of the government when it comes to the handling of detainees being released into the community. This is a very clear fact, even though the Labor Party don't like to deal in facts; they like to deal in rhetoric. Again, it's, 'Look here at these mistruths, and maybe you won't look over here at their complete, total and utter botching of the NZYQ case.' Let us be clear: NZYQ would not be in Australia were it not for Labor's failed border protection policies that allowed 50,000 arrivals on more than 800 boats. Mr Albanese, the next time Minister O'Neil or Minister Giles stand up to accuse Mr Dutton and suggest that he intervened to grant NZYQ a visa, act like a Prime Minister. Act like a leader. Stand up and accept responsibility for the 50,000 illegal immigrants that came to this country under your former government and for the mess that we had to clean up and the process that we had to utilise because of immigration law.