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Dutton defends cost of referendum proposal

Continuing from our last post:

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, was up on Sunrise earlier this morning to defend his referendum proposal – despite his ongoing criticism of the voice referendum as being too expensive.

Dutton said his argument is “if you betray your allegiance to our country in that way you should expect to lose your citizenship”.

The voice … was the wrong issue for the government to put to the people. It could have been dealt with by legislation. The prime minister wouldn’t explain the logic, rationale and impact of the voice. That’s why it went down. What we’re proposing here is a discussion about whether we have adequate laws … whether the constitution is restrictive …

The Sunrise host noted that Australians’ top concern right now is cost-of-living pressures – can the nation afford another referendum? Dutton responded, “absolutely.”

The first issue is to try to keep people safe … In terms of cost of living, of course, that’s our priority economically … 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.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton. Photograph: Nadir Kinani/AAP
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More details on Coalition’s proposed referendum

AAP has more details on the Coalition’s proposed referendum to decide whether ministers should have the power to strip dual nationals of their citizenship if they have committed a serious crime.

Laws that Peter 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.

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 $450m on the voice referendum, saying it divided the country when the money would have been better spent helping struggling Australians.

But, as we flagged earlier, Dutton defended potentially spending hundreds of millions more during a cost of living crisis. You can also read treasurer Jim Chalmers response earlier in the blog, here.



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