Terror sights set on sole nationals

The government is considering measures that would allow it to suspend some of the citizenship rights of sole Australian terrorist nationals.

The Abbott government is considering measures that would allow it to suspend some of the citizenship rights of sole Australian nationals if they are fighting for terrorist groups overseas.

This week, the government introduced into parliament legislation that will allow it to strip the Australian citizenship of dual ­nationals who are fighting with ­Islamic State or other terrorist groups overseas.

This legislation also allows for citizenship to be revoked from dual nationals who are convicted of certain terrorist offences.

Although this measure is primarily meant to stop foreign fighters from returning to Australia, the loss of citizenship applies even if the actions that trigger it were ­undertaken in Australia.

However, in a little-noticed speech this week, Tony Abbott flagged the government’s wider intentions. In the Magna Carta Lecture at Parliament House on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said: “To demonstrate that this is a national security measure (rather than a dual citizenship issue), as part of the citizenship consultation now taking place, the government will consider further measures to stop Australian foreign fighters with no other citizenship from readily returning here.

“Fighting for a terrorist group at war with Australia is the modern form of treason — and those who have left our country to fight against us may require a modern form of banishment.”

It is understood that the government is exploring the possibility of suspending certain citizenship rights of foreign fighters who are sole Australian citizens. The main right to be suspended would be the right to return to Australia.

Such a measure would not leave the person affected technically stateless. Any legislation along these lines would confront a slew of complex legal issues. States are generally expected under international law to accept back their citizens.

This is a point Canberra frequently argues when it considers the fate of failed asylum-seekers.

However, it is believed the measures the government is considering would not necessarily prevent a person affected by them from returning home to Australia forever. Rather, they would require such a person to negotiate their return with the Australian government. Part of the negotiation could involve offering a full and accurate account of their ­actions while overseas.

This is designed in part to overcome the difficulty of securing a court conviction against someone whose offending actions may have occurred in a war zone in the ­Middle East.

In a practical sense, it is all but impossible to bring witnesses from such countries. It is equally not ­realistic to imagine that intelligence agencies could divulge in open court all information they may have in such circumstances.

A sole Australian national could therefore possibly face a term of imprisonment after returning home.

This would satisfy community expectations of being kept safe from possible acts of terror carried out by returning foreign fighters.

This was a serious danger with some Australian citizens who ­returned home after involvement with the Taliban or al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan.

The government has not yet made any decisions on this matter and will work through the issues both in community consultation and in work carried out by government lawyers.

The parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security has started its inquiry into the new bill, which deals with the threat of dual-Australian citizens engaged in terrorism and specifies the circumstances in which an Australian dual national is taken to have lost Australian citizenship.

The committee is also considering whether the law should apply retrospectively for terrorism-related convictions.

Committee chairman and Liberal MP Dan Tehan said: “The committee will consider whether the powers to cease a person’s citizenship have appropriate safeguards in place, including how the minister’s discretion might be applied and available avenues of review.

“Retrospectivity is used very rarely in legislation. Accordingly, the committee will seek evidence from a range of experts before considering whether these proposed laws should apply retrospectively to dual nationals who have previously been convicted of terrorism-related offences.”

The committee, to report in August, is separate from a community consultation conducted by Philip Ruddock and the Parliamentary Secretary for Social Services, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.