Malcolm Turnbull has attempted to shut down questions from Labor about the validity of the government’s citizenship revocation laws by borrowing a locution from the Abbott era and advising the shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus to “get on Australia’s team”.



In question time on Monday Labor referenced a media report saying a “notorious terrorist” was set to have their citizenship revoked in the first case to be taken under the government’s citizenship revocation laws.

The report suggested the government was anticipating the move would be tested in the high court.

Dreyfus asked the prime minister whether the case referenced in the Daily Telegraph report would proceed under the same legislation where the attorney general had “incorrectly represented advice from the solicitor-general?”

The solicitor general, Justin Gleeson – courtesy of a bitter public dispute with the attorney general, George Brandis – has said very clearly he did not sign off on the final citizenship bill passed by the parliament, an account which cuts across a suggestion made by Brandis at the time that Gleeson had advised the government its citizenship revocation package had a good prospect of clearing the high court.

Turnbull moved to shut down the line of questioning from Dreyfus by first mocking and minimising the dispute between Australia’s first and second law officers as a “disturbance in the bar common room” – then suggesting the shadow attorney general was being unpatriotic.

“What the shadow attorney general is now doing is taking his feud with the attorney general into an area where he is putting our national security at risk,” Turnbull told parliament on Monday.

The prime minister said Dreyfus needed to “get over these petty personal animosities and get on our team, get on Australia’s team, to ensure that we have the right legislation”.

Turnbull’s argument was if Dreyfus had issues about the constitutionality of the bill, he should raise those issues in parliament’s joint intelligence committee or with Brandis himself, “hold[ing] his nose” if necessary – not by way of parliamentary questions.

“The member opposite believes he has a great legal brain,” Turnbull said of Dreyfus.

“Let him bring it to the committee and ensuring that we get the right legislation, not these questions that are designed simply to derive political advantage for Labor.”

Dreyfus persisted in his questioning: “Given this is the same legislation where a letter the attorney general provided to the intelligence committee incorrectly represented advice from the solicitor general, what are the risks to national security in the event of a successful legal challenge?

“What is the reason for the government misrepresenting the advice of the solicitor general?”

Turnbull said Dreyfus was “party to a unanimous, bipartisan set of recommended amendments to the legislation to which he presumably gave his very best attention”.

“He makes assertions about legal advice not being given. The government as he knows does not comment on its legal advice but the allegations that he has made have been rejected, as he knows, elsewhere by the attorney,” Turnbull said.

Labor expressed concerns about the constitutionality of the citizenship revocation proposal throughout a process of inquiry on the legislation conducted by the joint committee on intelligence and security.

The government had originally wanted to give the immigration minister powers to revoke citizenship in cases where there hadn’t been a conviction, but the proposal was walked back by the government because of concerns from Turnbull and other cabinet ministers that it would be unconstitutional.

Labor eventually supported the government in passing the legislation. Brandis supplied a letter to the intelligence committee suggesting that Gleeson had advised the package was soundly based.

Brandis, in a radio interview after his dispute with the solicitor general entered the public domain, has said that Gleeson was consulted on the citizenship revocation proposal “from time to time”.

“It was an issue on which, to be blunt, the cabinet was divided between on the one hand, me, Mr Turnbull and Julie Bishop and others, and on the other hand, the then prime minister Mr Abbott, and Mr Dutton, who was then the responsible minister, as to how extensive the power of executive detention should be,” Brandis told the ABC on 6 October.

“There were many, many chapters to this political controversy, during the course of which Mr Gleeson was involved from time to time.”