Australians could head to another referendum to decide whether ministers should have the power to strip dual nationals of their citizenship if they have committed a serious crime.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has floated the idea of another referendum after citizen-stripping laws were ruled unconstitutional by the High Court.
Laws Mr Dutton put in place when he was a minister were struck out after the court ruled it was unconstitutional that politicians could impose criminal punishment rather than the judiciary.
“You can’t out-legislate the constitution,” he told Seven’s Sunrise on Tuesday.
“What we’re proposing here is a discussion about whether we have adequate laws.”
The Commonwealth can already apply to a court to strip a dual-national of citizenship if they have committed a serious offence and been sentenced to more than three years prison.
The conduct has to be so serious it demonstrates they “repudiated their allegiance to Australia”, according to the Home Affairs Department’s explanation of citizenship cessation laws.
While the specifics of any referendum policy haven’t been revealed, a constitutional change giving the minister the power to strip citizenships would centralise power in the hands of the minister, effectively bypassing the courts.
The coalition has been critical of Labor spending $450 million on the voice referendum, saying it divided the country when the money would have been better spent helping struggling Australians.
Mr Dutton defended potentially spending hundreds of millions more during a cost of living crisis.
“With the voice, it was the wrong issue for the government to put to the people,” he said.
“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.
“You can deal with community safety at the same time you can make good economic decisions.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says it was an important issue but the referendum idea was an attempt by Mr Dutton to distract from having no economic policies.
He criticised Mr Dutton for imposing the previous laws that were thrown out by the High Court, saying, “now he wants a referendum to fix his mistakes”.
“We’ve taken a different approach, we rewrote his broken laws to create a more robust system to keep our community safe,” he 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.”
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