Australian PM uses anniversary speech to justify proposed new laws to strip dual citizens of citizenship if they have fought overseas

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, has used a Magna Carta-themed lecture to say how hard it is to secure terrorism convictions in courts of law, and that the rising threat of foreign fighters “requires a modern form of banishment”.

In the speech dominated by observations about terrorism, the prime minister said the greatest freedom of all was to “live without fear and dread”. And he suggested Australians “could help to encourage the easy-going versions of Islam that the world so hopes for”.

Abbott made the remarks during a British high commission-organised event at the Great Hall at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday evening. He delivered the 2015 Magna Carta lecture, marking the 800th anniversary of the document that enshrined the principle that the king was not above the law.

The prime minister spent a large portion of the speech talking about terrorism, saying at least 120 Australians had joined groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.

He said the rule of law served just as much “to protect us from criminals as it does to protect us from tyrants”.

Australians, he said, should never abandon their freedoms in order to defend them, but added: “Arguably, the greatest freedom of all is the freedom to live without fear and dread; particularly the fear, and the morbid fascination with evil, that’s at the heart of this darkness.”

Abbott sought to justify proposed new laws to strip dual citizens of their Australian citizenship if they are deemed to have gone overseas to fight for terrorist groups, even if they have not been convicted of an offence.

Putting Australian fighters in jail was, he argued, “easier said than done, despite new laws making it an offence merely to be present in designated terrorist-controlled areas”.

“We can’t readily put informers on the witness stand or always make available intelligence without risk to sources and it wouldn’t usually be possible, nor desirable, in such cases to bring witnesses from the Middle East to testify,” Abbott said.

“On the standard rules of evidence, without a confession, securing a conviction is hardly straightforward, let alone for crimes committed offshore in ungoverned space. Bringing foreign fighters back to face trial in Australia risks leaving them free on our streets rather than in our jails. That’s why the government has introduced legislation to strip citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals.”

Magna Carta, which is often cited as an important document for the legal principles it contained, included the passage: “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”

Abbott said fighting for a terrorist group at war with Australia was “the modern form of treason – and those who have left our country to fight against us may require a modern form of banishment”.



He pointed to Cicero’s comments from 1,200 years before Magna Carta arguing that “the safety of the people is the supreme law”.

“On the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, we shouldn’t just celebrate the rule of law; we must defend it,” Abbott said.

“And this means ensuring that people trying to kill us, for who we are and for what we believe, should not be at liberty to do us harm. The Daesh death cult [a reference to Islamic State] has abundantly demonstrated that the first people it is coming for are the vast numbers of Muslims who don’t agree with it.”

Abbott said Australians had “become appalled at the very idea of killing in the name of God”.

“An Australian, for instance, could freely echo President [Abdel Fatah] al-Sisi of Egypt’s warning that Islam needs a religious revolution without fear of official persecution or need of police protection,” he said.

“In Australia and other western countries, along with every one else, Muslims are entirely free to proselytise for their beliefs. In parts of the Muslim world, however, the wrong proselytism is punishable by death.

“If Islam is to further develop an appreciation of pluralism, it may need Muslims protected by the rule of law and the other principles of liberal democracy that Magna Carta so potently represents. Australians could help to encourage the easy-going versions of Islam that the world so hopes for.”

Abbott’s observations follow his declaration to parliament in September 2014 that Australians needed to accept a shift in “the delicate balance between freedom and security” in the interests of preventing terrorism.

Since that time, the government has made a series of changes to national security laws – generally with bipartisan support – boosting the powers of police and spy agencies and introducing new offences such as travelling to a declared no-go zone.

The laws ensure journalists, bloggers and whistleblowers face up to 10 years in jail for disclosing information about the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s “special intelligence operations”.

The Coalition and Labor also joined forces to pass mandatory data retention laws requiring internet service providers and telcos to store their customers’ metadata for up to two years, despite privacy concerns.

The latest citizenship laws – which will be debated after the winter parliamentary recess – target dual nationals who travel overseas to fight for terrorist groups.

But legal experts warned on Wednesday the bill was much broader and would allow citizenship to be stripped from dual nationals who had been convicted of offences that included damaging commonwealth property.

Also on Wednesday, the Liberal party’s Victorian division attracted criticism for citing Abbott’s citizenship laws in an email to members seeking political donations “to support a SAFER Australia”.