40 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 41(2):Adv that new, targeted laws are necessary in order to manage the risks posed by foreign fighters,205 have argued that citizenship stripping is a particularly unhelpful national security tool.206 In the Canadian context, this is arguably underlined by the ultimate repeal of the expanded citizenship stripping laws. Despite doing little to meaningfully improve national security, the denationalisation laws enacted in the UK, Canada and Australia convey a powerful message that citizens who may seek to harm their countries are undeserving of the privilege of citizenship. This raises the question of whether the symbolic value of making such a statement is itself a sufficient justification for such laws. Indeed, it has been suggested that, in certain instances and when employed in moderation, measures that appear to be targeting threats that attract high levels of anxiety can play a helpful role in engendering a feeling of security, even if their risk-minimisation effect is low.207 Echoes of such an agenda can be found in some of the justifications invoked in defence of the recent denationalisation laws — such as Australian Attorney-General George Brandis’s suggestion that applying ‘the famous pub test’ would reveal that the ‘average Australian’ would feel safer if people convicted of serious terrorism offences could be ‘booted out’.208 We suggest that, for a number of reasons, the symbolic rationale underpinning the recent denationalisation laws in the UK, Canada and Australia does not, in and of itself provide sufficient justification for their enactment. First and foremost, the laws enacted in all three countries were extremely broad, especially in regard to the conferral of power upon the executive. The laws enabled the revocation of one of the most fundamental rights in any democratic society 205 See, eg, Forcese and Mamikon (n 12). 206 See, eg, Gordon Clubb, ‘Removing Citizenship Will Only Encourage UK Jihadists’, The Conversation (Online, 29 August 2014) <https://theconversation.com/removing-citizenship-willonly-encourage-uk-jihadists-30754>, archived at <https://perma.cc/8L4W-GPSP>; Ben Saul, ‘Plan to Strip Citizenship Is Simplistic and Dangerous’, The Drum, ABC News (Online, 27 May 2015) <www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-27/saul-plan-to-strip-citizenship-is-simplisticand-dangerous/6499710>, archived at <https://perma.cc/T2KT-GUXY>; George Williams, ‘Why Malcolm Turnbull Must Dump the Citizenship Bill’, The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, 4 October 2015) <www.smh.com.au/comment/why-malcolm-turnbull-must-dump-thecitizenship-bill-20151004-gk0rgx.html>, archived at <https://perma.cc/HHG4-D9G9>. 207 Bruce Schneier, ‘In Praise of Security Theater’, Wired (San Francisco, 25 January 2007) <www.wired.com/2007/01/in-praise-of-security-theater/>, archived at <https://perma.cc/ 3EQM-S8T9>. See also Bruce Schneier, ‘Beyond Security Theatre’, New Internationalist (Oxford, November 2009) 10. Note, however, that Schneier makes this argument with several qualifications, and argues that an excess of ‘security theatre’ can increase the anxiety of a population: at 12. 208 Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 3 December 2015, 9938. Advance Copy