George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I am very proud to serve in a government which adheres to the principles of Magna Carta and adheres to the principles of the rule of law fiercely. Those principles, I might remind you, include the freedom of the individual. They include principles like low taxation. They include principles like constitutional governance and of course they include the principles of the rule of law. There is no inconsistency whatsoever between the fierce and tenacious defence of those principles and strong laws to keep our people safe from those who would do us harm particularly in this new era of global terrorism.

You are right when you say that the government will be introducing amendments to the Citizenship Act shortly. Those amendments, we expect, will be introduced next week and they will, as the Prime Minister has announced, provide for the loss of citizenship by dual Australian citizens who are involved in terrorist crime. And I can tell you that overwhelmingly that is what the Australian people want us to do, it is what the Australian people expect us to do and, although the opposition have been somewhat equivocal on the question, we understand that that is what the opposition wants us to do as well. There is no inconsistency whatsoever between adhering to the principles of Magna Carta and keeping our people safe. Indeed, it was to keep the people of that realm safe that Magna Carta was enacted some 800 years ago.