KARL STEFANOVIC:
The Government will introduce a Bill to Parliament today which will see dual nationals automatically stripped of their citizenship if they were involved in terrorism here or overseas. And for more, we’re joined by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. PM, good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
‘Morning, Karl.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
It’s been a long time coming. Do you concede it could have happened more quickly?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, Karl, I said in February this year, as part of a national security statement, that we were going to do this and about four months later that’s exactly what we’ve done. It was important to thoroughly consult over this. It’s been several times to the National Security Committee of the Cabinet, it’s been to the Cabinet twice and it’s been strongly supported by the Party Room and the objective always, Karl, is to keep our country safe. People who leave Australia to fight with terrorist armies in the Middle East are committing the modern form of treason and I guess to strip the citizenship from the terrorists who are dual nationals is, if you like, the modern form of banishment.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
You already have the power to cancel the passports of those people – those Jihadists fighting in Iraq and Syria. Isn’t that enough?
PRIME MINISTER:
Under normal circumstances, if you are an Australian citizen, regardless of what’s happened to your passport, you have a right of return. We’re not going to render people stateless. There will be judicial review of what happens here, but essentially, if you go to the Middle East to fight for a terrorist army we don’t want you back and by stripping your citizenship, you can’t come back.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Ok. So if a person is stripped of their citizenship while they are overseas as you say, will they have the right to review that decision and if so, do they have that when they come home? Can they mount a legal defence when they come home?
PRIME MINISTER:
We don’t want them coming back, Karl. That’s the whole point. We don’t want them coming back. By joining a terrorist army which is fighting against us, which rejects us, which wants to destroy us, they have forfeited any right to be considered Australian.
Now, yes, there will be judicial review and I’m sure there’ll be all sorts of pro bono lawyers who will be rushing to help the first person for whom this takes place. But the fact is, if you’re a terrorist, you’ve left our country to fight with a terrorist movement that regards our way of life as in some way satanic, that they’re saying to us ‘submit or die’, which hates our freedom, which hates our tolerance, which hates the welcome that we give to minorities, which hates everything about the way we live, frankly, why should we consider you to be one of us?
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Diplomatically it’s interesting, though, because effectively aren’t we making our problem someone else’s, maybe a country that’s just as against terrorism as what we are, but it’s making it their problem then?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t see it that way, Karl. Effectively, we’re saying to people who leave Australia to go to Syria and Iraq to fight with the Islamist death cult: stay there – you like it so much, stay there – we don’t want you back. And why would they want to come back given that they have obviously been brainwashed, they’ve obviously succumbed to this evil movement which hates everything about us?
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Do you want these laws to be retrospective? I mean, legal eagles aren’t going to allow that very easily either, are they?
PRIME MINISTER:
At the moment we’ve got people in jail in Australia for terrorist offences who are dual nationals and the question will be what should happen to them when they’re released. Now, the question of retrospective operation of these laws is something that I think the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security should look at. I think a lot of people would regard them as people who should be deported, but let’s see what the Committee says.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
As you would know only too well about this, committing a crime when you didn’t know that crime existed is always tough legally to prosecute.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s a fair point and that’s why the Committee should look at this, but the basic point I make is that these terrorist movements, these terrorists are having a go at us for who we are. It’s our country, it’s our way of life, it’s our set of values that they reject. They’re not people who’ve suddenly had a brain snap as it were, they’re not people who are prosecuting a private quarrel. They have an argument with our country. It is, as I say, the modern form of treason and that’s why it may well deserve the modern form of banishment.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
I agree with all that, but making that happen is going to be incredibly difficult. How confident are you that you’ll get retrospective legislation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Karl, again, the legislation that we are introducing today does not have retrospective effect. Whether it should have retrospective effect is something that I’ve asked the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security to have a look at. Let’s see what they recommend.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Ok. Nick Xenophon has warned of retaliatory attacks on Australian targets around the world. Do you share his concern?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, obviously, people who hate us will look for ways to do us harm, but for months now, blood curdling threats have been emerging from the Daesh death cult in Syria and Iraq against many countries including Australia. Often enough, Australia has been singled out with admonitions by this terror group to its sympathisers here in this country to take up arms against Australians, to go and seize Australians – infidels as they call us – off the streets and do us damage. The feature of modern terrorism, Karl, is that all you need to be a modern day terrorist is a knife, a flag, a camera phone and a victim and that’s exactly what these people have been practicing against us.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
So does this legislation though heighten that risk?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is a clear statement by this Government and by our country that while our freedoms are precious and will never be sacrificed, we will defend them. We will make a strong stand against those who would do us harm.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf – any update? Any confirmation yet?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have a high degree of confidence – and I’m speaking to you on the basis of advice, Karl – we have a high degree of confidence that Elomar is dead. We don’t have any such certainty as to the other individual.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Given all that, will you help Sharrouf’s wife and children come back home?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, again, we will apply the law and we will apply the law against people regardless of their age, regardless of their gender. These aren’t the first criminals who have had children and these children of criminals will be dealt with in the same way that the children of criminals are normally dealt with.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
So that means that if they wanted the kids to come home – the kids can’t really be held responsible for what their parents do, especially given these circumstances – but if the kids wanted to come home or their guardians wanted them to come home, we’d allow it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, again, they’d be dealt with in the same way that the families of criminals are normally dealt with. These aren’t the first evil murderers to have had families and their families will be dealt with in the same way that the families of criminals are normally dealt with.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Do you feel for those kids?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I suppose at one level, yes, but on the other hand, we have to appreciate the scale of the evil which has been practiced here and that’s the thing: we will act to protect our country. The safety of our community is the first concern of government. That’s what the people expect of us and that’s how we’ll act.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Ok. Just finally, the Q&A programme. The Telegraph calls it this morning ‘terror-vision’, that is their headline. Did you tell the Party Room yesterday that they are a lefty lynch mob and was this Party Room payback?
PRIME MINISTER:
Karl, you know I treat the confidentiality of the Party Room very seriously. The problem here is that the ABC, our national broadcaster, gave a platform – a national and indeed global platform – to a convicted criminal and a terrorist sympathiser. It’s interesting, back in 2005 when the individual in question was sentenced, the sentencing judge deplored the platform that the media had given to this individual. Now, of course, our supposed national broadcaster is giving a platform to someone who hates us, hates our way of life, supports the terrorists who would do us harm. Again, I say, the issue for the ABC, our national broadcaster, is ‘whose side are you on’? Because all too often the ABC seems to be on everyone’s side but Australia’s.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Prime Minister, thanks for your time today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]