Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Repudiation) Bill 2023

Peter Dutton

This is one of the most serious debates that this parliament could enter into, but we're entering into this debate in one of the most farcical circumstances I can recall in my more than two decades in this parliament. This is a very serious issue for the government to contemplate. To put it into context, the government has had since June to compose legislation, to seek legal advice from the Solicitor-General and to resolve these matters which have arisen because of the judgement within the High Court. None of that has taken place.

We went in for briefings earlier this week, on Monday, to be told by the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs that this bill, the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Repudiation) Bill 2023, and the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions) Bill 2023 were to be dealt with on Monday. They wanted to deal with the two bills, to rush them through, in a haphazard way, which is a similar outcome to what happened in the last sitting week—no correspondence entered into, no legal advice being made available to the opposition so that we can contemplate our position, just this jackboot operation to drive it through the chamber here.

What we're seeing at the moment is an opportunity for the government to move this bill as quickly as possible into the upper house, because that would mean that there would be no consideration in detail in the lower house. It would mean that the reasonable amendments that we have to move wouldn't be individually voted on by the members of the government, because they don't want to be in a position where their constituents hear what Labor is really concocting here, and that is a vote against the very reasonable suggestions that we've made by way of amendments—which have been outlined by the shadow minister for immigration—to make Australia safer. That's what they're trying to circumvent here, and that's why the motion has just been moved by the Leader of the House—because he wants to get it out of this chamber and out of the public eye as quickly as humanly possible.

This government has presided over an absolute train wreck of a policy which is putting Australian citizens at risk. We know, in relation to the High Court case, in relation to the migration matter, that the minister has conceded that the particular case was settled before, and the facts agreed to, on the minister's submission—which is why the minister was asked about it in question time today—which conceded a point which gave rise to the High Court decision that has got us into this mess. When a minister for immigration is considering a matter and hasn't made a final determination in relation to an individual, that doesn't mean that that person is facing indefinite detention. But that is essentially what the minister for immigration and the Minister for Home Affairs, through their collective incompetence, have surrendered in the High Court, which has allowed over 140 people to be released into the community.

We know that at least one of them has been released. We don't know whether this is the rapist, the paedophile or somebody who has been involved in serious criminal conduct otherwise. We don't know where this person is. We don't know whether there are others in the community who have been shown an open front door, without the ankle bracelet, without the requisite reporting conditions, because the government has this cone of silence, trying to keep the information from the Australian public.

I think it's unconscionable for the Prime Minister to continue this farce. These two ministers are out of their depth. They don't have a clue as to what is going on. What we found out on Monday in the briefing in relation to the citizenship bill was that this bill doesn't even capture Benbrika and three other high-risk terrorists who have been convicted in our country. These people are serious offenders, and it's beyond the capacity of this government or this minister to deal with them and to provide assurances of safety to the Australian people.

We have spent a lot of money, time and effort over the course of the last decade or so, given the threat from ISIL, ISIS and returning overseas foreign fighters, and people being indoctrinated over their computer screens, making sure we keep Australians safe. This Prime Minister is putting all of that at risk. And the saddest part, as the shadow minister for immigration pointed out before, is he's not across the detail. He, too, frankly and sadly, doesn't have a clue as to what is going on. So we get this patchwork arrangement. It is unacceptable, and it's why the coalition will continue to push for harder laws so that we can keep Australians safe and that we can save the ministers from their own incompetency.

Adam Bandt

This is no way to pass laws. This is no way to run a country, and it's happening because Labor is dancing to the Liberals' tune. The Leader of the Opposition, who's got a history of punching down and attacking migrants, whips up a fear campaign, and, instead of responding soberly, Labor is panicked and rushes legislation into this parliament that deals with some of the most fundamental issues we can deal with around citizenship and the relationship between the High Court and the parliament. It is one of the most fundamental issues that you can deal with, and what happens? We see opposition—

Scott Buchholz

I ask the member for Melbourne to take his seat for a moment, please. It looks like the opposition leader is seeking the call.

Peter Dutton

Those words used by the member for Melbourne offend against standing orders 89 and 90, and I would ask that you ask him to withdraw those offensive words.

Scott Buchholz

Member for Melbourne, it would assist the House if you withdrew the comments.

Adam Bandt

To assist you, Deputy Speaker, I withdraw. I remember the Leader of the Opposition saying people in Melbourne were scared to go out because of African gangs. What rubbish, what hatred, what division was fuelled by those kinds of comments—and he repeats them time and time again.

Last week I said to Labor, 'Don't engage in a race to the bottom with the Leader of the Opposition, because there's nowhere that he won't go.' And we see that on display now. He says: 'You're not acting quick enough. You're not doing anything. You need to bring legislation before parliament.' So Labor dances to his tune and rushes legislation before parliament, and then he says: 'No, you're rushing it. Slow down. You're rushing it.' You cannot appease the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to this, so they shouldn't even try. Instead, when we are dealing with some of the most fundamental issues—including dealing with whether people have their citizenship, how you keep the community safe, how you respond to issues raised by the High Court, how you interpret the Constitution—that is the time for sober, considered judgement, not for dancing to the Leader of the Opposition's tune.    We have seen it here: do not just give in to him because he will come back and ask for more every time. When you rush something because he says you're going too slow, he'll accuse you of going too fast. When you bring in legislation that you say is tough, he says you're not going tough enough. There is nothing that he won't ask you to do. I plead with the government: stop letting the Leader of the Opposition occupy the de facto role of running the country. That is what is happening at the moment.

There are serious issues that arise out of the High Court decision that there have been months to respond to. We have known what the parliamentary timetable is for quite some time. It was well within the government's ability to bring legislation forward, to allow it to go through the usual committee processes and to give everyone in this place the time to consider it, go and seek advice and then come back and decide whether to support it or oppose it. That should happen with any legislation, but it especially should happen with legislation that can have the effect of taking away someone's citizenship. We don't know what the unintended consequences are in this legislation. We do know, because we've seen it happen here over the last seven days, that when the government rushes legislation they then have to rush in more legislation to fix it. That is not a way to pass laws in this country, and who knows what problems there are with this legislation? You would think that, when it comes to something so fundamental, you would want to get the best advice about whether there are unintended consequences. When it comes to legislation that potentially affects what you do with children who might have dual citizenship and then might find themselves potentially stripped of it or their parents stripped of it, you'd want to have a chance to have a reasoned and sober debate about that. But we're being denied it.

Five minutes! Five minutes for a piece of legislation that came in at lunchtime that deals with one of the most fundamental issues that you have as a citizen, namely your right to citizenship—that is no way to legislate. But it's what happens when Labor gives in to the fearmongering of the opposition.

I tell you what? You think you're doing it now and ripping the bandaid off, but it's going to happen again and it's going to happen again and it's going to happen again. We're going to be back here and back here and back here. So I plead with the government to reconsider, to give us all in this place time enough to consider the legislation and not ram this through.

Paul Fletcher

The Australian people are seeing in real-time what a chaotic, disorganised and incompetent government we have. The contrast could not be more stark between the matters that were spoken about just a few moments ago by the Leader of the Opposition—when he spoke about the methodical and systematic way in which, under the previous coalition government, these matters that are so critical when it comes to keeping Australian citizens safe were dealt with by the previous government and, as a consequence of that methodical systematic approach, the necessary measures were taken to keep Australian citizens safe, to manage in an appropriate way our migration processes and to do the things that Australians expect that a competent and capable government will do—and what we've seen from the present government, which has been mystifyingly incompetent.

The decision of the High Court to which the bill before the House today responds, the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Repudiation) Bill 2023, was made on 8 June. That is six months ago, give or take, and only now is the government bringing forward legislation. It was shared with the opposition for the first time on Monday of this week, and all of a sudden they are in a desperate rush to get it done. They've had months in which they've sat on their hands, and now there is a desperate rush to get this done. One of the consequences of the desperate rush, with the evidence suggesting that the drafting of the bill wasn't completed until, as I understand it, sometime over the weekend, is that this bill does not actually deal with the circumstances of Mr Benbrika, the person after whom the High Court judgement was made—one of the parties. It does not deal with historical cases like those of Mr Benbrika and will only deal with future terrorism cases. That is but one of many serious problems the opposition has identified with this bill in the brief time that we have had to consider it, including the brief time we've had to consider the revised version of it that was provided to the opposition this morning.

I think another very obvious question that Australians might have is: if the government had not been caught flat-footed in relation to another High Court case, leaving it to release into the community a number which now stands at well over 100—indeed, 141—hardened criminals, if the government had not been caught flat-footed without a contingency plan and had not been so embarrassed by being seen by the Australian people to have comprehensively mismanaged these issues, I think there's a very real question as to whether they would have bothered to bring forward the bill that is before the House today, because it's impossible to avoid the conclusion based on the facts and on what we've seen of the conduct of these two hapless and hopeless ministers, the Minister for Home Affairs and the minister for immigration, that they had very little idea of what they would do. Based on the facts and on what we've seen of the conduct of these two hapless and hopeless ministers—the Minister for Home Affairs and the minister for immigration—it's very hard to avoid drawing the conclusion that they had very little idea of what they would do. They have been sitting there in a reactive mode rather than working proactively to identify the steps they need to take to identify perfectly predictable potential scenarios, such as the High Court coming down with particular decisions. Instead of preparing in a proactive fashion, they've sat there in a flat-footed fashion and they've been caught out, and the Australian people have seen just how incompetent this government is—just how reactive this government is. What is very troubling is the scale of the threat to public safety as a consequence of what we have seen happen, with some 141, to date, hardened criminals released into the community. The contrast between the calm, sober, methodical management of these issues when the current Leader of the Opposition had ministerial responsibility and when other ministers had responsibility under the previous coalition government and the chaos that we are seeing now is very striking. It should trouble, I think, every Australian.

Long debate text truncated.