Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. We're talking about the citizenship of these people. That's what it's all about. The High Court's decision was that the minister of the day cannot bring in punitive measures, and that can be a wide range of things. My understanding—and my question will go to the minister soon—is that it is the minister of the day who can actually strip someone of their dual citizenship. There are three reasons why a person stays in the country: they can't be sent back to their own country because of fear of execution, they are a genuine refugee and they will be made stateless if you strip them of their citizenship.

In the case of NZYQ the minister is talking through his hat because he actually blames former minister Dutton for the mess that we're in now. The minister knows that you cannot get a lot of these people out of the country, because they've destroyed their citizenship and other countries won't take them, so we're in this mess that we're in. I asked the minister yesterday—and remember that they've been in for a year and a half—how many times he has applied to have NZYQ deported and he said that we've applied to six countries. Why hasn't he been deported? Why sit there and blame former minister Dutton for him not being deported when you know you can't do it yourself? You haven't been able to. That's why we're stuck with them.

Minister, people want to know who has control now, at this time, over the stripping of citizenship. Can you answer my question?