Prime Minister Tony Abbott has challenged Labor to back his plan to revoke the Australian citizenship of dual nationals suspected of terrorism offences.
At the same time he has dismissed as "false" reports of a cabinet split over possibly extending the measure to cover Australians with sole citizenship.
"A proposition was put to the cabinet, the cabinet supported the proposition, the party room overwhelmingly supported the proposition," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.
He said the government's position was clear.
"I want to know where Labor stands on this," he said.
The opposition is usually lock-step with the government on national security measures but has concerns about the hardening of citizenship laws.
"I think there are issues about what the standard of proof would be, who should do it, should it go before a judge or a minister and what the circumstances are to be?" Labor's legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus told ABC TV.
The bedrock of citizenship laws should be the assurance that nobody be made stateless by the Australian government, he said.
Mr Abbott said safeguards would be in place - decisions to strip citizenship would be subject to judicial review and no one would be rendered stateless.
Mr Dreyfus said Labor was unable to declare its hand because the government had yet to outline a detailed plan, instead releasing a seven-page discussion paper.
Greens Leader Richard Di Natale said stripping Australians of citizenship would not make the community safer.
"Australians can't afford a captain's call from Tony Abbott on citizenship," he said.
Parliamentary secretary Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who is responsible for community consultation over the fight against terrorism, insists it's important to have a public debate on the issue.
"It's about a conversation to give the Citizenship Act a contemporary feel given the challenges that we are now facing," she told ABC TV.
Share
