Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is believed to be mulling a referendum over stripping dual nationals of their citizenship if they have committed a serious crime, such as terrorism.
Dutton and his senior MPs are believed to have held high-level talks about a potential change to the Constitution, if elected, to allow ministers the ability to cancel the citizenship of people guilty of crimes, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
To clarify, Australian law already allows judges to deport dual nationals convicted of serious offenses if they’ve been sentenced to over three years in prison and their actions demonstrate they “repudiated their allegiance to Australia”. It’s understood the proposed change would let ministers revoke citizenship for these crimes, effectively bypassing the courts, and to make this possible, the Constitution would need to be amended with a referendum.
Appearing on Sunrise on Tuesday, Dutton elaborated his argument is “if you betray your allegiance to our country in that way you should expect to lose your citizenship”.
He also defended the cost of this referendum proposal, which is notable given his previous — and ongoing — criticism of the $450 million spent towards the Voice referendum.
“The Voice … was the wrong issue for the government to put to the people. It could have been dealt with by legislation. The prime minister wouldn’t explain the logic, rationale and impact of the Voice. That’s why it went down. What we’re proposing here is a discussion about whether we have adequate laws … whether the constitution is restrictive,” Dutton explained, per the Guardian.
“The first issue is to try to keep people safe … In terms of cost of living, of course, that’s our priority economically … If we believe that we want to keep people safe, if you want to keep your kids safe and we want to keep kids safe in our community, I don’t think you can put a price on that.”
Addressing Dutton’s proposal, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it was an important issue, however he described it as an attempt by the opposition leader to distract from economic policies.
He also criticised Dutton for imposing the previous laws that were thrown out by the High Court in 2022, saying, “now he wants a referendum to fix his mistakes”.
In 2022, a High Court ruling found the ministerial power to strip citizenship was unconstitutional. A similar court decision in 2023 allowed convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika to remain in Australia, per the Sydney Morning Herald.
“We’ve taken a different approach, we rewrote his broken laws to create a more robust system to keep our community safe,” Chalmers told ABC Radio.
“He quite bizarrely wants another referendum – I don’t think this idea will last long, just like a lot of the other things that he said in an effort to try and avoid talking about the economy and his cuts.”
A deportation referendum would also echo a 2015 proposal from then prime minister Tony Abbott to strip Australian terrorists — even if they are not dual citizens — of citizenship. However, the proposal faced significant challenges and ultimately did not become law.
Last month, Dutton observed the recent incident involving two Sydney nurses claiming they would kill Israeli patients highlighted the need to discuss “inadequacies” of Australia’s migration system, noting the government was heavily restricted in its ability to strip people of their citizenship, per SBS News.
As reported by Sky News, Coalition leaders appear to be divided over Dutton’s proposal, with shadow attorney general Michaelia Cash stating there were “no plans to hold a referendum at this stage”.
“We… would only look at that option as a last resort,” Cash told the publication on Tuesday.
“However, if gets to the point where it is necessary to amend our constitution to keep Australians safe, then we believe that’s a debate our country is mature enough to have.”
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