Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The answer I can give you is the same as the one I gave you yesterday for a similar question. I will need to take on notice the exact date that those drafting instructions were first issued to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. What I can say to you is that, like yesterday, policy design work on these matters commenced around the time of the Alexander decision. Work has been underway for some period of time on this. It wasn't until the Benbrika decision was handed down that a full explanation was provided by the High Court that would enable the drafting of a bill that was constitutionally sound. I am advised that policy design work on what became this bill commenced pretty much immediately after the Alexander decision.

While I'm on my feet, I might take the opportunity to explain a little bit more about the amendments that are being put forward in this bill today, because they goes to the concept of Australian citizenship. In 2022 over 190,000 people became Australian citizens by conferral, joining our community and swearing allegiance to our country and our common values. Citizenship is not a passive process. It is a formal commitment to our country and the values that uniquely define all of us as Australians. It is a privilege cherished by those who are born into it and those who choose it. Australian citizenship is a common bond involving reciprocal rights and obligations between the citizen and the state. These reciprocal rights and obligations require active maintenance both from the citizen and from the state, regardless of how a citizen acquired their citizenship.

Citizens voluntarily engaging in serious and significant conduct, such as treason, advocating mutiny and fighting for foreign states, fail to meet the obligations of their Australian citizenship. By working against the interests and common values of Australia, they have demonstrated that they, as individuals, do not have allegiance to Australia. The common bond of citizenship has been broken, and it is appropriate for a framework to exist to formally cease these individuals' Australian citizenship.

In 2015 the parliament recognised that a citizen could repudiate their allegiance to Australia and break this common bond by committing terrorist acts or leaving Australia to join terrorist groups overseas, when the parliament introduced the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015. The parliament's intention was confirmed when the provisions were reformed in 2020. This is really where the story of today's legislation begins.

I can understand that people who may be following this debate might be a little bit confused about the different concepts that are being dealt with, today and yesterday.

Yesterday, of course, what we dealt with was the matter of noncitizens who were in immigration detention, who have had to be released as a result of a High Court decision. Today is a separate concept. Today is about ensuring that we have constitutional laws—laws that are legal—to strip the citizenship of people who have Australian citizenship but have committed acts or serious offences that demonstrate they do not have the allegiance to Australia and our values that citizenship involves.

Another way of describing what we're doing today is fixing yet another mess from Mr Dutton, as the former Minister for Home Affairs in this country. I mentioned in the debate yesterday the separate legislation dealing with the noncitizens who have had to be released into the community. I mentioned yesterday that the only reason we were having the debate yesterday was that this government and this parliament is now required to fix a number of serious failures from Mr Dutton in his role as Minister for Home Affairs in the former government. The failures most egregiously involved the fact that the regime for the detention of noncitizens that Mr Dutton implemented as the minister was found to be unconstitutional by the High Court—aka not legal. The fundamental reason for that was that the system Mr Dutton had in place gave the power to the minister rather than a court to order the indefinite detention of one of those noncitizens. It was the giving of the power to the minister rather than a court that the High Court found to been unconstitutional.

That wasn't the only failure from Mr Dutton that led us having that debate yesterday and having to pass legislation yesterday in relation to those noncitizens in detention. He also, of course, personally intervened to allow a visa to be granted to the plaintiff in the NZYQ case. That person wouldn't have been in Australia and wouldn't have been in detention if Mr Dutton hadn't personally intervened, as the minister, to grant that individual a visa. Of course, what we also know is that Mr Dutton was either unable or unwilling to negotiate resettlement arrangements to resettle in other countries any of the 147 people who have now been released into the community. The whole foundation of why we had that debate yesterday and passed those laws yesterday is a series of failures from Mr Dutton as the minister: no resettlement deals, intervening to grant a visa to the plaintiff in the case and, of course, presiding over an unconstitutional system.

In case people are feeling a sense of deja vu as they're listening to the debate today: that's because you are. What we're doing today is again fixing unconstitutional laws that were introduced and presided over by Mr Dutton as the home affairs minister. We've had a situation over the last few weeks where Mr Dutton, Senator Cash and the coalition have tried to lay blame at the feet of the Albanese government and have played politics with these matters. The only reason we are having these debates, the only reason we are introducing these pieces of legislation, is a series of failures of Mr Dutton and the coalition during their time in office. They were never concerned with whether laws were constitutional. They were never concerned with whether laws were legal. Have a look at robodebt: a cruel and illegal system presided over by the Morrison government. But it wasn't just social security matters where the Morrison government and Mr Dutton acted illegally and acted outside the bounds of the law; they also did it in relation to immigration matters. That's why we are here today fixing up this mess.

Just like the debate we had yesterday, what we're dealing with today is fixing laws that were unconstitutional, unlawful and brought into this parliament by Mr Dutton as the home affairs minister. Again, over those years where we saw Mr Dutton as the home affairs minister, there was lots of tough talk. I said on the weekend that he's like one of those boxers who goes around in the days leading up to a fight talking about how tough he is and how he will knock the other guy out, but he gets in the ring and he's a lightweight—because his laws don't stand up. His laws were unconstitutional, and they were struck down by the High Court. That is why we are here today. That is why we should also be highly cautious about any amendments proposed by the opposition, when they have a track record of drafting laws in this space which are unconstitutional.

We'll no doubt have a discussion about those amendments at some point through this committee stage, but we should be extremely cautious of taking the advice and taking the amendments of people who actually presided over the very unconstitutional laws that we are dealing with now. That is why this government has said that those amendments should be considered by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to ensure that they're constitutional. The very worst thing that we could do right now is, for the sake of scoring some political points and getting some good runs in some media outlets, to introduce new laws that are as unconstitutional as the last ones Mr Dutton introduced, and the ones before that that he and his government introduced as well.

What we, the Albanese government, want to do is put in place serious, tough laws that actually work, that stand up in court and that make sure the government can make applications to a court to seek the stripping of citizenship from people who commit very serious offences—not just any offences but offences that go to their lack of allegiance to this country and our values; offences like treason, advocating mutiny and fighting for foreign states. Provided we draft these laws in a way that gives the power to strip citizenship for those types of matters to a court, we are confident that they are constitutional.

To expand those powers further to cover a range of other offences that are unrelated to things like treason, mutiny and allegiance to a country—to expand the laws to try to capture those types of offences—risks again having unconstitutional laws penned by Mr Dutton and the coalition and does so only to score political points. We are confident that the legislation that we're putting forward is constitutional, and I call on all parties in the chamber to support it. (Time expired)