2015-12-01
The imminent passage of the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015 will do nothing to protect Australians from the threat of violent extremism, Greens legal affairs spokesperson Nick McKim says.
“We cannot make Australians safer by making other countries less safe,” Senator McKim said.
"The best place for violent extremists is in secure Australian prisons, but this legislation allows for them to be exported into a global market place of radicalised people and potentially commit more violence against Australians at home and abroad.”
“This legislation is Abbott-era machismo which was clearly designed to wedge Labor on issues of national security.”
“Not one iota of evidence has been offered to show that this legislation will make Australians safer.”
“This Abbott-era Bill, and the indecent haste in which it has been pushed through Parliament, fly in the face of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s promise to be ‘calm, clinical, professional and effective’ in response to violent extremism.”
“Yet again, the Greens have been the real opposition as Labor has rolled over and waved this Bill through the House and Senate without bothering to scrutinise it.”
“The Greens believe national security legislation deserves a much more strategic and transparent approach than the rushed, reactionary and politicised approach of the old parties.”