Think Australians can never agree on anything? A whopping 81% of Australians support the government’s proposal to take away the citizenship of dual nationals who are “engaged in terrorism or supporting terror groups”, today’s Essential Report finds. And 73% of Australians support stripping citizenship from sole nationals if they are eligible to become citizens of another country.
The strong result vindicates Tony Abbott’s decision to try to use the issue as a wedge against both his internal critics and Labor, which backs the idea in principle but wants to see the legislation. Liberal/National voters are the voter segment most overwhelmingly in favour of stripping citizenship, with 93% supporting it for dual nationals and 90% for sole nationals. Greens voters are the most opposed, though even 52% support stripping citizenship from dual nationals engaged in terrorism, against 35% who disapprove. And almost half (44%) of Greens voters support stripping citizenship for sole nationals, against 31% who disapprove. Labor voters are right in the middle, though they also strongly support stripping citizenship from both dual nationals (77% for, 11% against) and sole nationals (67% approve, 15% disapprove).
Q. Do you approve or disapprove of the Government’s proposal to take away the citizenship of dual nationals who are engaged in terrorism or supporting terror groups?
Q. And would you approve or disapprove of taking away the citizenship of sole nationals who are engaged in terrorism or supporting terror groups if they are eligible to become a citizen of another country?
But even though there is strong support for the measure, most Australians (including most Liberal voters) think the power to strip citizenship shouldn’t rest with the Immigration Minister — an issue that split cabinet. More than half (54%) of those surveyed think the decision to strip citizenship should be made by a court of law, not a government minister, compared to 24% who want the decision to be made by a government minister, and 22% don’t know). This is true across all voting segments, though Liberal/Nationals voters are most likely to want the decision to be made by a government minister (34%, against 47% who want the decision to be made by a court), with Greens voters most in favour of the courts deciding a citizen’s fate (71%, against 8% who think the decision should rest with a government minister). Labor voters also strongly favour a court making the determination (58%) over a minister (22%).
Tough talk on terrorism may be helping the Prime Minister, with Tony Abbott continuing his recovery in the eyes of voters: Abbott’s approval rating is up three points to 39% since May. Half of Australians still disapprove of his performance as Prime Minister, but that is down four points from 54% in May. Abbott’s net approval rating has risen from -18 to -11, which is his best net rating since November last year. And the news gets worse for Bill Shorten, whose approval rating held steady at 32% but whose disapproval numbers are up 4%, to 45%. His net approval rating has dropped from -9 to -13, his worst since becoming Opposition Leader.
Essential also asked about rising house prices. Just 23% of voters think rising housing costs are good for the economy, versus 36% who think it’s bad for the economy. Rising prices are recognised as good for home owners (49%) and investors (46%), but 74% agree they are bad for first home buyers and 57% say they’re bad for average Australians.
Voting intention has remained steady again: the Coalition primary vote remains on 41% and Labor remains on 40%. The Greens are down a point to 9% but the two-party preferred result remains the same on 52%-48% in Labor’s favour.
Are you seriously implying that politicians are somehow at fault when doing no more than enacting Legislation which voters expected a Government would do, and voters wanted a Government to do, simply because YOU don’t like it?
You have to learn to accept that what’s appropriate isn’t defined in terms of whether YOU like it.
And most people are morons. No surprises here.
Of course, the key question is whether they still support it even if it is just the Minister for Immigration signing off without any recourse to appeals, or even basic fairness. Or perhaps some clarity around the ‘how’ a person is determined to have helped a terror organisation. Bought any halal food recently? (yes, that was deliberately facetious.
It is a fact that many of the people who supported this will be in the firing line, either as dual citizens or as someone who has a grandparent born in say UK, Ireland, most of Europe, etc. Anyone given any money to a charity group recently and not done the due diligence to ensure that no money goes astray anywhere?
Hard to quantify that level of stupidity.
Never fails to amaze me about people’s opinions of such things, however on The Drum the other night Nick Cater reckoned that the govt already has the ability to take citizenship from people. He said that Amanda Vanstone did it with Christopher Skase, although no one else has mentioned this and she doesn’t seem to remember it either.
Norman Hanscombe, don’t you think that it is occasionally the job of government to provide moral/principled leadership rather than simply fanning the flames of fear and prejudice?
Who am I kidding. After their performance in respect of refugees and SSM, fear and loathing is pretty much the sole MO of this government.
When they came for the terrorists I cheered. I wasn’t a terrorist.
When they came for those who thought about being terrorists I applauded because I never had that thought.
…
When they came for those whose opinions I deplore, I thanked them.
When they came for those who wrote comments to Crikey – they took me. oh, oh, oh! No one was left to complain..