Tony Abbott’s proposal to strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship if they commit acts of terrorism will finally come before Parliament today, after being put on the backburner with the change of leadership.
Any hope that the proposed law would be scrapped under the markedly less hysterical Malcolm Turnbull (who previously broke ranks to criticise it) has now gone out the window — although the government has agreed to accept dozens of recommended changes to the legislation from Parliament’s Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
One of the committee’s main concerns was that the proposed law was unconstitutional because it abandons the core requirement of separation of powers. The legislation will allow the government to strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship if they go overseas to engage in terrorist acts, thereby forcing them to go to the countries where they hold their remaining citizenship. It will be able to be applied retrospectively in more serious cases.
But whether the new law is unconstitutional or not — and it will almost certainly be found to be so in an inevitable court challenge — it is also an attempt to dump our problems on other countries, something the committee recognised when it noted that “Australia is expected not to unilaterally strip nationality to avoid” its international obligations to prosecute terrorists.
As we reported at the time:
“During committee hearings, the assembled security bureaucrats from agencies like the Department of Immigration made the staggering admission that they hadn’t bothered speaking to any other countries, and particularly not Australia’s allies, about how they felt about Australia dumping its terrorists on them.”
How many foreign citizens will die at the hands of terrorists Australia has let free to roam the globe rather than bring home to jail? The proposed law is grossly irresponsible.
I read yesterday of the Maori Afghan War soldier who has been deported because he is a Rebels gang member and visited a friend in jail in WA. The Rebels are not illegal in Western Australia and the man has no criminal record.
The spirit of Anzac lives on, eh?
Not only is it grossly irresponsible, it is now Turnbull’s.
Irresponsible, immoral, counterproductive & unworkable, another Abbottrocious triumph up with which we continue to put…
“Any hope that the proposed law would be scrapped under the markedly less hysterical Malcolm Turnbull (who previously broke ranks to criticise it) has now gone out the window”
BREAKING: Spineless small l liberal centrist has no conviction in anything
If does appear that Labor was correct about Turnbull – different suit, same policies.
When speaking about migration and citizenship, it is not just the citizenship legislation. The criminal deportation process has now moved the onus to the person convicted of an offence (who will have been moved to a prison far from where they used to live) to mount a case as to why they shouldn’t be deported, rather than the Department making an assessment with the person’s input. Not only that, people are being deported when they have lived here since they were babies (they might not be nice but effectively they are one of ‘us’)and sometimes for not very serious offences.
Then there’s Morrison’s and Dutton’s language. A ‘person on a visa’, as far as anyone might have used this term in the past, used to be used to refer to those on temporary visas – temporary workers, students and visitors. Morrison and Dutton use it to refer to anyone who is not a citizen, ie including permanent residents, whereas it used to be that a person who was a permanent resident was regarded as a settler or a migrant – a person who was in Australia for good. Whereas ‘person on a visa’ suggests conditionality.
Whilst my terminology may not be completely correct, or a bit simplistic, the point is they are talking about long-term permanent residents as though their stay in Australia is conditional.
No longer are migrants talked about as a welcome part of the fabric of the community, and this at a time when the numbers arriving are about double what our infrastructure can cope with.
There’s a definite whiff of cleansing about it. Migrant cleansing rather than ethnic cleansing, getting rid of those who are inconvenient to keep.
It has started with the citizenship laws and the extreme criminal deportation laws. Where next?