The government appears to have backed away from plans to strip Australian nationals of their citizenship if they have been accused of supporting terrorism while onshore.
Legislation on stripping dual nationals of their citizenship will be debated in the Coalition party room on Tuesday.
The government initially wanted to scrap citizenship automatically for both those accused of supporting terrorism in Australia and those believed to be fighting abroad. It has now reframed the issue to be all about offshore foreign fighters.
“Leave them over there. We don’t want them back,” West Australian Liberal Luke Simpkins told ABC Radio. “The main thing is to keep these people out.”
The legislation, which the government wants to get through both houses before the winter recess starts on Friday, will expand the scope of section 35 of the Citizenship Act so that fighting with a foreign terrorist group like Isis could trigger the revocation of Australian citizenship.
Section 35 currently allows for the cancellation of citizenship if Australians take up arms with the militaries of countries Australia considers to be enemy states.
Simpkins, one of a number of Coalition backbenchers who wrote to Tony Abbott urging him to do more to curb the threat of terrorism, admitted that onshore supporters of terrorism should be subject to judicial processes.
“If they’re onshore, then putting them through the court system would be the way to go,” Simpkins told ABC Radio on Tuesday. “Following a conviction, if that occurs, then action should be taken.”
The comments are a departure from those made by the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, earlier this month.
“If they’re deemed to be a terrorist or acting in support of those terrorists, fundraising, acts preparatory to [terrorism], all of those which we’ve defined in the legislation – if they fall within that category and we don’t render them stateless, whether they’re here or they’re offshore, we will strip citizenship from them under this proposal,” Dutton said.
A number of cabinet members expressed concerns with elements of the government’s initial proposal, including giving the immigration minister the power to strip citizenship without a conviction.
But the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said she was “satisfied” with the revised legislation.
“I’m confident that the government has addressed the concerns that were raised in the last couple of weeks,” she told reporters in Canberra. “We’ve considered a range of options and I believe that we have come up with an appropriate draft piece of legislation.
“I’ve been involved in many detailed discussions about it, and I’m satisfied,” she said.
Labor’s employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, said the revised legislation amounted to a backdown by the prime minister.
“The PM looks like he has been rolled by his own cabinet on it now, because now there will be some judicial involvement or oversight in the process,” he told Sky News.
That was dismissed by the parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, Steve Ciobo.
“That was always under consideration. Judicial review was always going to be part of the process,” he said.
Abbott was expected to unveil the details of the legislation later on Tuesday.
