Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015. The bill would allow Australian citizenship to be stripped from dual nationals who, in repudiation of their allegiance to Australia, engage in certain terrorism-related conduct. There are three mechanisms proposed in the bill by which a person could lose their citizenship: renunciation through their conduct; renunciation through service outside Australia in the armed forces of an enemy country or a declared terrorist organisation; or following a conviction for terrorist offences and certain other offences.

In the course of the inquiry, the committee received more than 40 written submissions and conducted three public hearings with a broad range of legal groups, academics, other non-government organisations and government agencies. The committee carefully considered the evidence it received and concluded that it is appropriate that persons who clearly repudiate their allegiance to the Australian community by engaging in serious terrorism-related conduct against Australia or Australian interests should no longer have the right to call themselves Australian citizens.

The committee has produced a comprehensive report that acknowledges and responds to issues raised by contributors. The report's 27 recommendations support our national security and law enforcement capabilities while narrowing the scope of the bill's application and improving safeguards, oversight and accountability mechanisms. The committee has recommended that the loss of citizenship through a person's conduct—as outlined in proposed section 33AA of the bill—be limited to conduct occurring outside Australia or to conduct in Australia where the person involved has fled overseas before being charged and brought to trial. This provision of the bill is self-executing, meaning that, once a person has engaged in the specified conduct, they are taken to have renounced their citizenship.

Where a person is convicted of one of the relevant offences listed in proposed section 35A, the committee has recommended that the minister be required to make a positive decision that a person's citizenship should be lost. In making this decision, the minister should be satisfied that a person's conviction demonstrates that they have repudiated their allegiance to Australia.

The committee considered that the conviction based provisions should only apply to the most serious offences. Accordingly, the committee has recommended that section 29 of the Crimes Act—which relates to destroying or damaging Commonwealth property—and a number of other offences that carry a maximum penalty of less than 10 years imprisonment or have never been used, be removed from the list of relevant offences for which a conviction can lead to loss of citizenship.

Similarly, to capture the most serious conduct, the committee is of the view that the conviction based provision should only apply in circumstances where a person has been given a sentence of at least six years imprisonment.

The committee was asked by the Attorney-General to consider whether the conviction based provisions should be applied retrospectively. The committee acknowledged that retrospectivity should only be applied with great caution and carefully considered the evidence it received on this matter. The committee formed the view that past terrorist related conduct is conduct that all members of the Australian community would view as repugnant and a deliberate step outside the values that define our society.

Accordingly, the committee has recommended that the conviction based provisions of the bill be applied retrospectively to convictions for relevant offences where sentences of 10 years or more have been handed down by a court. It is the committee's view, however, that the minister must not retrospectively revoke citizenship where a conviction was handed down more than 10 years before the bill received royal assent.

In other measures to enhance the procedural fairness of the bill, the committee has recommended that the minister provide notice to the person affected that citizenship has been lost or revoked, and give reasons for the loss.

The committee has made two recommendations to limit the application of the bill to children. Firstly, that no part of the bill apply to conduct by a child aged less than 10 years and that proposed sections 33AA and 35 do not apply to conduct by a child aged under 14 years. Secondly, that section 36 of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007—which enables the minister to revoke a child's citizenship following revocation of a parent's citizenship—does not apply to this bill.

Finally, the committee has made several recommendations designed to strengthen oversight and accountability, including an ongoing review role for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

Subject to these recommendations, the committee supports the bill's passage through the parliament. I would like to thank all members of the committee for their hard work and commitment to achieving this bipartisan outcome. In particular, I would like to once again express my gratitude to the deputy chair, Mr Byrne, for the way that he cooperatively works with me on producing the bipartisan reports that we have in the last couple of years.

I commend the report to the House.

In accordance with standing order 39(e) the report was made a parliamentary paper.