Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

There is nothing more important than we maintain a bipartisan solidarity in defence of the security of this country. There is nothing more important than the shadow Attorney-General gets over his spat with the Attorney-General and focuses on the real issue—which is not the dispute in the bar—which is ensuring that our laws keep us safe and give our police and our intelligence services and our ministers the powers to keep us safe, and we have seen him today stirring up an issue about the powers to revoke citizenship from terrorists. This is a very important power. He sat on the parliamentary joint committee. He brought his legal eminence to that committee. If he has a concern, he should be raising it within that committee or, if he can bear to speak to him, raising it with the Attorney-General or the minister. Of course, it does not stop there. This man went on last night to release a letter to me, which the Attorney-General has replied to at my request, again raising questions about other security legislation and the disagreement with the Solicitor-General. Once again, a responsible would-be Attorney-General would be raising those issues in the committee with a common bipartisan effort to get the laws right. I just say to the Leader of the Opposition: we can well understand these great men of the bar do not see eye to eye, but they should put our safety first.

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