Jihadi loophole furore
Labor moves to strip terrorists of citizenship
LABOR will seek to close an impending legal loophole that would allow terrorists to apply to have their Australian citizenship reinstated.
The Albanese government has promised “tough new laws” to enable the courts to decide if a dual citizen should lose their Australian citizenship over terrorism conduct or a terrorism conviction.
The move seeks to address a flaw in the nation’s security laws that arose earlier this year after the High Court struck down Coalition-era changes to the Australian Citizenship Act.
The Coalition had amended the Act to give the home affairs minister the power to strip dual nationals of citizenship over terrorist activities.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’neil said the laws granting ministerial discretion to remove citizenship were a “monumental mistake” by former home affairs minister Peter Dutton.
“He personally championed these laws and he is personally responsible for their failure – especially because he ignored all advice given to him during their passage through parliament,” she said.
“Laws that fail in the courts do not make the country safer.”
Ms O’neil said terrorists who committed crimes against Australia should have their citizenship taken away.
“We will legislate to achieve that end because that is the safest thing for our country,” she said. “Our new laws will be tough, and they will work.”
The High Court in June found the Coalition’s laws were invalid because they involved the minister breaching the separation of powers by exercising the exclusively judicial function of judging criminal guilt. The majority of the court agreed the powers were unconstitutional as it ruled in favour of Delil Alexander.
Alexander is a Turkish citizen whose Australian citizenship was cancelled by Mr Dutton in July 2021 over his alleged links to ISIS.
The finding of ministerial overreach means the Coalition’s amendments will be scrubbed from the Act.
The decision has implications for about 20 Australians whose citizenship has been revoked over their alleged terrorism links, including notorious Jihadi bride Zehra Duman.
Following the Alexander case, the Albanese government decided it wouldn’t contest Duman’s appeal against the decision by the previous government to strip her of her Australian citizenship.
Duman, who allegedly left Australia in 2014 to marry an ISIS fighter, is set to have her citizenship restored.
Labor’s new laws will be retrospective and apply to people who commit terrorism offences overseas as well as in Australia, meaning they could apply to Duman.
A court will have to determine whether Duman loses her citizenship again.
Labor’s legislation is expected to pass through the parliament with the Coalition’s support.
Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said if Labor wasn’t going to fight Duman’s case “they need to make sure that these laws that will fix this loophole come into place immediately so this issue can be addressed”.
“We’ve got to fix this issue that came as a result of that court decision, and we want to make sure the government continues to, where is appropriate, strip the citizenship of terrorists,” Mr Tehan told Sky News on Monday.