‘Can’t afford tomato sauce’: Nat Barr takes on Peter Dutton over referendum plan

Peter Dutton’s plan to hold a costly referendum has come under fire from by a former Liberal attorney-general.

Peter Dutton’s big idea to hold a constitutional referendum on kicking out dual citizens convicted of terror offences has been slammed as “mad” by former Liberal attorney-general George Brandis and destined to fail.

Mr Brandis has warned that reports that Peter Dutton is considering committing a Coalition government to hold a referendum to give ministers constitutional power to deport criminal dual nationals, first reported by news.com.au on February 21, was a surprise.

“After the emphatic defeat of the Voice in 2023, one would have thought the last thing Australians want from the next parliament is the distraction of yet another ideologically inspired constitutional referendum,’’ he said.

“If the idea is under discussion, it is a very bad one. Dutton should rule it out, and fast.

“An unwanted referendum, without bipartisan support, to overturn the High Court? It is as mad an idea as I have heard in a long time. If it is indeed under consideration, that consideration should stop right now.”

Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Brandis noted that the idea behind any such referendum would be to overturn the 2022 decision of the High Court in Alexander v Minister for Home Affairs, when the court ruled that amendments to the Australian Citizenship Act, enabling the minister to revoke the Australian citizenship of dual nationals, was invalid.

Mr Dutton said you can’t ‘put a price on’ community safety. Picture: NewsWire/David Geraghty

“I have a close interest here because three of the judges who decided the case were appointed on my recommendation. When deciding on the name to take to cabinet for an appointment to the High Court, my simple criterion was to choose the most legally eminent person. I did not apply any ideological test. However, as a constitutional conservative, I only considered people whom I expected to be strong upholders of the independence of the judiciary against overreach by the executive government,’’ he said.

“That principle should be an article of faith for any conservative, yet there are still many on the political right who demand an ideological test for appointees.”

“Among the long litany of failed constitutional referendums (all but eight of 44), there is one in particular which should give the opposition pause: the Menzies government’s defeat at the 1951 referendum to ban the Communist Party. Unlike all the others, it is the only constitutional referendum to have been mounted by a government for the specific purpose of overcoming a decision of the High Court.

“The 1951 referendum is commonly regarded as the great stain on Menzies’ liberal escutcheon. It undoubtedly damaged his reputation. What is overlooked by historians is that until the 1949 election, Menzies had always opposed the banning of the Communist Party, on orthodox freedom of speech principles, in the face of pressure from the right wing of his own party and, more stridently, from the Country Party.

“Menzies had learnt from his mistake. Dutton should learn from Menzies’ mistake too.”

Nat Barr grills Dutton

Sunrise host Nat Barr has grilled Peter Dutton over the huge cost of his plan to hold a constitutional referendum to kick out new Australian citizens involved in hate crimes, warning that too many Australians “can’t afford tomato sauce”.

News.com.au broke the story on Friday, February 21, revealing Peter Dutton had vowed to do “what it takes” to kick out new migrants who engage in anti-Semitic attacks and “hate our country”, pledging a constitutional referendum if required.

The Liberal leader said the rise of anti-Semitism involving the shocking video of nurses at Bankstown Hospital threatening to “kill Israelis” and other incidents was one of the most shocking things in his lifetime.

“I think the Constitution is a barrier, yes,’’ Mr Dutton said on February 21.

“If we need to amend the Constitution, then I think that’s a debate that our country is mature enough to have.”

Sunrise host Nat Barr questioned Peter Dutton about the costly plan at a time many Australians ‘can’t afford tomato sauce’.

On Tuesday, the Sydney Morning Herald wrote a story reiterating Mr Dutton’s comments to news.com.au and stated that he was prepared to hold a referendum, sparking a fresh wave of media reporting.

Speaking on Sunrise on Tuesday morning, host Barr pointed out the number one priority in this country: the polls say 80 per cent of people care about the cost of living.

“Can we afford hundreds of millions of dollars on another referendum?” she said.

“Do we spend money on a referendum right now when everyone can’t afford their tomato sauce?”

“If we believe that we want to keep people safe, if you want to keep your kids safe and we want to keep kids safe in our community, I don’t think you can put a price on that,” Mr Dutton replied.

“Do you really want to send voters to another referendum poll?” Barr asked.

“I want to keep our country safe, that’s the first priority and it’s the first responsibility of any prime minister and at the moment we’ve got people in our country who hate our country who want to cause terrorist attacks,” Mr Dutton replied.

Mr Dutton highlighted the case of Sydney nurse Ahmad Rashad Nadir, who became an Australian citizen five years before appearing in a shocking ant-Semitic video. Picture: NewsWire handout

“My argument is if you betray your allegiance to our country in that way you should expect to lose your citizenship. We would never grant somebody citizenship if we knew they were going to plan a terrorist attack.

“If someone pledges allegiance to our country and breaks it, or is involved in child paedophilia, I believe the community standard demands people who don’t abide by our laws and respect fellow Australians and want to harm women and children don’t deserve priority.

“We have millions of people who want to come to our country who are good people. We have a great migrant story. We want to make sure the laws expect community values.”

Seizing on revelations that Sydney nurse Ahmad Rashad Nadir was a refugee from Afghanistan and had been granted citizenship almost five years ago, Mr Dutton first raised concerns last month.

He said it highlighted deficiencies with the migration system.

But he then went a step further, admitting the Constitution made it difficult to cancel citizenship and suggested a constitutional referendum was not out of the question.

“If somebody commits a terrorist act against our country, they have broken their allegiance with our country, and we have laws which allow the stripping of citizenship from people who commit terrorist attacks, but the High Court has limited the application,” he said.

“There’s provision under the Migration Act which allows for a revision of a decision being made to grant citizenship in narrow circumstances where people have made a false declaration.

“We have to have a meaning to the commitment that those people make when they sign up to be an Australian citizen.

“So when you make the declaration, when you turn up to the citizenship ceremony, and you pledge of allegiance to our country, if it turns out at that point or at some subsequent point that you actually hate our country, or that you hate a segment of our country, or that you would seek to do harm to our country, then I think there is a serious question for our country to ask as to whether that is an acceptable position.

“I am prepared to do what it takes to make our country safe and to uphold the values that people adhere to when they sign up for Australian citizenship,” he said

The Sunrise host noted that dual citizenships can be deported if they’re sentenced to more than three years if they commit a crime, and that the last referendum didn’t go down well and cost $400 million.

“Can’t we do it some other way?” she asked.

“You can’t out legislate the constitution. The constitution is the rule book,” Mr Dutton replied.

“As you point out with ‘The Voice’ it was the wrong issue for the Government to put to the people. It could have been dealt with by legislation. The Prime Minister wouldn’t explain the logic, rationale and impact of ‘The Voice’. That’s why it went down.

“What we’re proposing here is a discussion about whether we have adequate laws, whether we have adequate laws, whether the constitution is restrictive and ultimately what I want to do is keep our country safe and the community safe.

“There are a lot of Australians at the moment who are worried about the rise of anti-Semitism and what we’ve seen in our country and elsewhere which doesn’t reflect the values we fought for over many generations.”

‘He wants a referendum to fix his mistakes’

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the Liberal leader’s calls to deport criminal dual nationals was a distraction by Peter Dutton to cover up the High Court overturning his first attempt to “impose these laws”.

“Now he wants a referendum to fix his mistakes,” Dr Chalmers told ABC RN.

“We’ve taken a different approach. We rewrote his broken laws to create a more robust system to keep our communities safe.

Nationals leader David Littleproud backed the reform push insisting that “everything should be on the table” despite the cost.

“We shouldn’t rule anything out when the world is evolving and becoming more fluid and the threats are becoming more real and are changing – then we shouldn’t be constrained as governments to protect the Australian people,” he told Sky News.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

“If the world’s changing, Australia needs to understand we need to change with it if we’re to keep ourselves safe and that’s what we’re prepared to look at and consider.

“That’s what strong leadership is about – about having the courage of your conviction, of understanding your responsibility, leaning into it and living up to it and that’s what a Dutton-Littleproud government will do and we’re not afraid to take on the hard issues and ask the Australian people to come with us to keep them safe.”

Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said Australia was “mature enough” to have the debate.

“I think it’s one of the great institutions of our constitution that we hold a referendum if you want to change our founding document, that we ask every single Australian their opinion on the change,” Senator McKenzie told ABC RN.

“I think that’s very, very democratic, ideally and usually that takes place with a constitutional convention where both sides get to publicly debate each other and Australians get to hear the details of the yes case on the question and the no case.

“And I think that that would be an absolutely appropriate thing to amend our constitution so that we can keep Australians safe and I think our country is mature enough to have that debate.”