A whopping three-quarters of voters support a controversial proposal to strip the citizenship of sole Australian nationals who take part in terrorist activities, if they able to obtain the citizenship of another country.
The proposal to strip sole nationals of their passports, floated by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and backed by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton in May, was put on the backburner after an extraordinary cabinet leak revealed six ministers had concerns about the move.
The proposal is now being canvassed as part of a citizenship discussion paper being steered by senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and veteran MP Philip Ruddock.
In findings that will potentially embolden advocates of the move within the Abbott government, an exclusive Fairfax-Ipsos poll of 1402 voters, conducted from Thursday evening to Saturday night, revealed that 75 per cent of voters support the proposal, with 21 per cent opposed and just 4 per cent undecided.
The proposal is popular with voters of all political persuasions, but most of all with conservatives: 89 per cent of Coalition supporters back the measure, compared with 69 per cent of Labor voters and 49 per cent of Greens voters.
Only 9 per cent of Coalition voters oppose the proposal, with 2 per cent undecided; among Labor voters, 25 per cent oppose the proposal, with 6 per cent undecided, while 46 per cent of Greens voters oppose the proposal, with 4 per cent undecided.
Two weeks ago, the federal government unveiled the details of legislation that would see terrorists who are dual nationals, both in Australia and overseas, stripped of their Australian citizenship by expanding the operation of section 35 of the Australian Citizenship Act.
Those new laws, which are currently being examined by the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, would allow for "renunciation by conduct", meaning that if an Australian engaged in terrorism against Australia, citizenship would be automatically forfeited.
The other measure in prospect to tackle the issue of dual nationals engaged in terrorism is "revocation by conviction", which would see someone convicted of a terrorist offence forfeiting their citizenship.
At the time he launched the proposal to strip dual nationals engaged in terrorism of their passport, Mr Abbott said the issue of sole nationals losing their passport would be examined by Senator Fierravanti-Wells and Mr Ruddock as part of the citizenship discussion paper.
"That's something which the government will reconsider, along with what might possibly be done in respect of people fighting with terrorist armies overseas who are wholly and solely Australian citizens," he said.
Under international law, Australia is required to not render a person stateless, but there have been suggestions that this road block could be worked around with a person being able to take out citizenship of another country.
The discussion paper suggests that certain privileges of citizenship, such as the right to vote in elections and receive consular assistance, could instead be suspended for Australian citizens engaged in terrorism.
That suggestion has won support from Social Services Minister Scott Morrison, who has suggested sole nationals involved in terrorism overseas could have their residency rights suspended, rather than being stripped of citizenship.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells told Fairfax Media that submissions to the discussion paper had now closed and that she and Mr Ruddock were now evaluating and analysing the responses.
"We have had very good response to the wide-ranging questions raised in the discussion paper," she said. She did not comment on whether the proposal to strip sole nationals would be revived.