Tony Abbott heads off citizenship terror law dissent

Tony Abbott has quelled dissent over stripping citizenship from terrorists and challenged Labor to support the contentious laws.

Tony Abbott has quelled cabinet dissent over stripping citizenship from terrorists and challenged Labor to support the contentious laws when they come to parliament next week.

In a combination of public bravado and private consultation, the Prime Minister has satisfied Malcolm Turnbull — the outstanding Liberal critic of the proposal to take Australian citizenship from dual nationals serving as terrorists and stranding them overseas — that his concerns will be addressed in the drafting changes to the bill.

The Prime Minister aggressively dismissed concerns raised by the Communications Minister and others at a cabinet meeting three weeks ago, declaring the cabinet decision “certainly won’t be revisited”.

“The reason why we have made this decision is because we have a very strong view: if you’ve left this country to join a terrorist army in the Middle East, we don’t want you back,” Mr Abbott said.

The bill was expected to go to the National Security Committee of cabinet last night.

Since the leaking of the cabinet dispute over the original proposal, Mr Turnbull has written to the Prime Minister’s office several times, including a submission on how he thought a change could be made to add “armed forces” to legislation — to cover Islamic State terrorists — to limit ministerial discretion and fend off a High Court challenge.

Mr Abbott has now responded to Mr Turnbull and addressed his concerns. Mr Turnbull, who does not sit on the NSC and is not in the leadership group, would be denied an opportunity to speak on the issue unless it returned to the full cabinet.

But Mr Turnbull has now been given advice from the Solicitor-General, which raised some querie­s, and has been consulted by Mr Abbott, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and Attorney-General George Brandis.

Liberal backbenchers, who overwhelmingly support the stripping of citizenship of terrorists, have become increasingly angry with Mr Turnbull as he has campaigned to have the decision brought back to the full cabinet.

Responding to a report in The Australian yesterday that there was still cabinet dissent over the drafting of the legislation and demands for it to come back to full cabinet for final consideration, Mr Abbott said: “We have made a clear decision. The government has made an absolutely clear decis­ion that we are stripping the citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals and that’s a decisio­n that’s been made.”

“It was made in the National Security Committee, it was ratif­ied by the cabinet, it’s supported by the partyroom. Now, legislation to give effect to this will be coming into the partyroom next week and it will be going into the parliament next week,” he said.

Mr Turnbull, who raised objections to the proposed legislation in cabinet three weeks ago, continued to campaign publicly yesterday for changes and did not deny suggestions the initial cabinet process had been “botched”.

At the end of last month, at least six ministers — including Mr Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop — queried whether the proposed ministerial discretion to strip Australian citizenship from dual nationals involved in terrorism in Syria and Iraq was constitutional and open to a High Court challenge.

Mr Turnbull, a leading barrister before entering politics, has publicly expressed his concerns since and argued that cabinet should be given the Solicitor-General’s advice before making a final decision.

Yesterday he said there needed to be a lot of input into such a decision.

When asked if the process had been botched, Mr Turnbull replied: “People will always make comments about process — that’s your job, not mine. I just say, as I said yesterday, the only thing that matters is the shape of the bill when it emerges and is presented in the parliament.’’

Some Liberal backbenchers have also been angry because the internal dissent deflected political attention from the Labor Party and the opposition’s changing position on the issue.

Mr Abbott yesterday attacked the suggestion by Labor’s legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus that terrorists should be brought back for trial and face a conviction in court as “rolling out the red carpet” for terrorists, like it “rolled out the red carpet for people-smugglers when it was in government”.

Mr Dreyfus said it “should not make any difference at all” whether a suspected terrorist was in Australia or overseas.