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Labor baulks at terror citizenship changes

Labor has split with the coalition over laws making it easier to cancel the Australian citizenship of convicted terrorists.

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Source: AAP


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Labor will not support new laws making it easier to cancel the Australian citizenships of dual national terrorists.

The opposition has on Thursday taken the rare step of splitting with the coalition over national security legislation.

Labor members of federal parliament's intelligence committee, which has a long history of bipartisanship, issued a minority report indicating they would not support the terror laws.

Dual nationals sentenced to at least six years' jail for terror offences can already be stripped of their Australian citizenship.

The coalition wants to scrap this six-year threshold and expand the range of offences on which it can rely.

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The opposition saw some merit in lowering the legislative bar required to cut extremists adrift.

However Labor committee members are concerned the draft laws are likely to be unconstitutional.

The laws would significantly lower the threshold around proving a person's citizenship of another country.

Under the changes, the minister would only need to be "reasonably satisfied" a person may be entitled to citizenship elsewhere.

There are widespread concerns this shift could leave people stateless, in breach of international law.

The Labor Party also expressed "serious doubts" about the ability of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to exercise the expanded powers in a consistent and responsible way.

"This bill is about nothing more than opening a political front against the Labor Party on the issue of domestic national security by a desperate and irresponsible government," Labor's Mark Dreyfus told parliament.

The opposition wants the federal watchdog responsible for reviewing counter-terror legislation to review the bill.

Mr Dutton said the threat of Islamic extremists returning to Australia from foreign battlefields was not a hypothetical prospect.

"I want to do everything humanly possible within the law to stop the people from coming back," he told 2GB radio.

"And yet, I've got Mark Dreyfus playing defence lawyer, trying to find technicalities where these people can come back in and they don't want to offend other countries or they're worried about the diplomatic implications."


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