The Coalition Backs One Nation's Bill to Bar Australians with Terrorist Links from Returning Home
The Coalition, including opposition leader Angus Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan, will support Pauline Hanson's One Nation bill aimed at preventing Australian citizens with ties to overseas terrorist groups from returning home. The Guardian
One Nation's bill was set for introduction to the Australian Senate on a Wednesday. Coalition frontbenchers Ted O'Brien, the shadow foreign minister, and Jonno Duniam, the shadow home affairs minister, offered to work with Hanson on the legislation. Duniam indicated the Coalition would like the bill referred to a Senate committee — a panel of lawmakers who scrutinise proposed laws — for review by legal experts rather than fast-tracked to a vote.
The legislation, formally flagged in late July when Hanson unveiled a 22-page "Protecting Australians from Foreign Terrorist Fighters Bill" ahead of parliament resuming on 11 August, would create a new "foreign terrorist fighter exclusion order" regime. These orders would be issued by the federal court at the request of the home affairs minister. The bill would also make it easier to cancel Australian passports and would introduce new penalties for anyone helping individuals with links to terrorist groups return to Australia. The Australian
The political dynamics here are layered. Matt Canavan said on Tuesday that the Nationals would work with One Nation on the bill, despite having previously promised to fight Hanson's rise in the polls. The Coalition is simultaneously preparing to finalise the design of a policy to significantly reduce immigration places, a broader restrictive posture on borders and entry that predates this specific collaboration. The Guardian
The government's position is blunt. Home affairs minister Tony Burke said last month that Hanson's plan "would last about 30 seconds in the high court" — Australia's highest court, which can strike down laws found to be unconstitutional. A constitutional law expert separately assessed that the bill's proposed exclusion order mechanism would not work. SMH
Burke's critique is not purely legal. He argued that Australian citizens blocked from returning could be more dangerous overseas, where they remain outside the reach of Australian security agencies. This positions the government's objection on two fronts: the bill may not survive judicial scrutiny, and even if it did, it could reduce rather than improve national security by stripping authorities of their ability to monitor those individuals.
The Albanese government recently used existing exclusion orders to temporarily bar an Australian woman linked to Islamic State from returning, but conceded it lacks powers to permanently block citizens from entering the country. That gap — between temporary exclusion under current law and the permanent bar Hanson's bill seeks to create — is the policy fault line the legislation exploits.
The bill's prospects in the lower house are dim. It would not be debated in the House of Representatives without Labor facilitating its progress, which is considered extremely unlikely. One Nation and the Coalition pressed ahead with their own proposals to further restrict the return of IS-linked Australians despite lacking the numbers, suggesting the initiative is as much about political positioning as legislative outcome. ABC
Parliamentary records add context to the longer arc of this debate. A House of Representatives Hansard record from 3 March 2026 records a dispute over Senator Paterson's claim that no fighters returned under the Morrison government, with a counter-statement that two fighters did return during that period. APH Hansard Earlier Senate records from July 2019 describe schemes to manage and control the return of Australian foreign fighters, and One Nation's strong support for complementary security legislation at that time. APH Hansard
The constitutional question is the bill's central vulnerability. Australia's existing temporary exclusion order regime, established under the Criminal Code, already allows the home affairs minister to seek court orders temporarily preventing a citizen's return for up to two years. Hanson's bill would extend this to permanent exclusion, a step that legal experts and the government say collides with the constitutional principle that Australian citizens cannot be stripped of their right to enter the country. The High Court has not directly ruled on permanent exclusion of citizens, but the government's confidence that such a law would fail judicial review is rooted in established constitutional doctrine on citizenship and entry.
The broader context here is a realignment of opposition politics on national security. The Coalition's decision to lend its weight to a One Nation-authored bill, rather than draft its own equivalent legislation, signals a willingness to work through minor-party channels on contentious security policy. The proposal for Senate committee review, if accepted, would give the bill a formal legislative pathway and a public examination of its legal architecture, even if it ultimately stalls in the House. Whether that review materialises, and what legal experts tell the committee about the bill's constitutional feasibility, will shape whether this initiative produces law or remains a political marker.
