Prime Minister Tony Abbott has left the way open for significant changes to new citizenship laws, with Parliament's intelligence committee set to examine whether they should cast the net to include retrospective involvement in terrorist activities.

The laws, to be introduced to Parliament on Wednesday, will automatically strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship if they are involved in terrorism.

As with previous counter-terror legislation, it will be immediately referred to Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security.

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Mr Abbott said the Government will ask the committee to consider whether the legislation should capture those previously engaged in terrorism.

"We aren't proposing that it be of retrospective operation," Mr Abbott said, adding that the Government nevertheless believed it was "right and proper" the prospect be examined.

"Because there are people who are dual nationals currently in jail on terrorist offences and at some point in the future they'll be released and the question will then arise, should they be deported?

"Now, if the legislation passes the Parliament with retrospective effect, obviously that would be a possibility."

As it stands, the Australian Citizenship (Allegiance to Australia) Bill will impact on those involved in terrorism only from the day it becomes law.

Mr Abbott has also not ruled out the option of holding people in indefinite detention, if their second country of nationality refuses to take them in.

"That's a bridge that we would cross if and when we came to it," he said.

The legislation has been strongly endorsed by the Coalition party room, after being discussed by Cabinet on Monday night.

Initial discussions in Cabinet last month resulted in a fiery debate, revealed in an extraordinary leak to Fairfax newspapers, with half a dozen ministers concerned that the power to strip citizenship would lay solely with the immigration minister of the day.

Senior legal figures argued that would have been unconstitutional.

Law itself will strip citizenship, not minister

The element has been ditched in favour of what is described as a "self-executing" revocation of citizenship.

"The role of the Minister is not adjudication, it's notification," Mr Abbott said.

"It will be the operation of the law that actually strips people of their citizenship rather than the ministerial decision as such."

The bill will prompt the revocation of citizenship if dual nationals:

fight with a listed terrorist organisation overseas

fight with a listed terrorist organisation overseas are convicted of a terrorism offence

are convicted of a terrorism offence engage in terrorist-related conduct

The bill confirms the loss of citizenship will be "subject to judicial review".

Coalition backbenchers asked questions in the partyroom meeting about the impact on young children and "jihadi" brides.

"They will be subject to the law," Mr Abbott said at the later press conference.

"And the law will be enforced with its full rigor by this Government, to keep our community safe."

The Prime Minister also indicated that there would be more citizenship legislation later this year to target sole Australian nationals who engage in terrorism — a measure that has already won backbench support.