The Coalition will back a plan by Pauline Hanson to prevent Australian citizens with links to overseas terrorist groups from returning home, significantly elevating One Nation’s policy prescriptions on matters of national security.
Despite pledging to fight Hanson’s insurgent rightwing movement amid collapsing support for their own parties, the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, and Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, both signalled support for One Nation’s bill to bar the return of foreign fighters ahead of its introduction to the Senate on Wednesday.
Key members of Taylor’s frontbench, including the shadow foreign minister, Ted O’Brien, and the shadow home affairs minister, Jonno Duniam, have offered to work with Hanson on her bill.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email“We’ll work with them on that legislation, it is important we get it right,” Duniam said.
“We’d love to see it go off to a Senate committee to make sure that people who know a little more than we in the Senate know, legal experts to make sure it is robust.
“We want to shut the door on terrorists, we’ve been trying for years to do this.”
Even with the Coalition’s support, the One Nation bill won’t be debated in the House of Representatives without Labor facilitating its progress. Such a move would be extremely unlikely, after the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said last month that Hanson’s plan “would last about 30 seconds in the high court”.
But the Coalition’s support is significant, not least because national security is a traditional political strength for the Liberal and National parties.
Hanson’s bill would allow Australian passports to be cancelled more easily and create new penalties for anyone assisting the return of people with links to terrorist groups.
It would establish a new “foreign terrorist fighter exclusion order” regime, imposed by the federal court at the request of the home affairs minister.
The Albanese government used existing exclusion orders to temporarily bar one Australian woman linked to Islamic State from returning, but conceded it did not have powers to permanently block citizens from entering the country.
Burke has argued Australian citizens blocked from returning could be more dangerous overseas and outside the reach of security agencies, while also noting countries have responsibilities to other nations to deal with their own citizens.
Despite promising to fight Hanson’s rise in the polls, Canavan on Tuesday said the Nationals would work with One Nation on the bill.
“I’m happy to work with anyone in parliament to make our country better, in this case, safer and more secure.
“We have, for a long time, sought to ensure that those people who are subscribing to and supporting violent ideologies pay a penalty in this country, potentially lose rights or are deported.”
Canavan said the Coalition had wanted to make similar moves as far back as the Abbott government.
“We’ve indicated, and I know Angus has indicated, to Senator Hanson that we’re happy to work with her on her bill this week.”
Taylor has a separate plan to target charities and community groups working to help Australians linked to terrorist groups return home.
