Kathy Marks: Populist instincts drive PM's Isis policy

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is again designing policy on the run and again creating bitter splits within his Government. Photo / Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph called it "the photo that will shock the world", and for once it did not exaggerate. The 7-year-old son of an Australian Isis (Islamic State) fighter, Khaled Sharrouf, posed proudly with the severed head of a Syrian soldier.

A year on, Sharrouf's wife and five children want to come home, reportedly because living conditions in Syria are "poor".

In response, and confirming the adage that hard cases make bad law, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is again designing policy on the run and again creating bitter splits within his Government.

This time, though, far from sparking a backbench revolt, his actions are driven by backbenchers - and by the worst sort of populist instinct.

Like other Western nations, Australia has been grappling with the challenge of how to deal with radicalised Muslims who travel to Iraq or Syria to fight with Isis. Emulating Britain and Canada, it plans to strip those with dual nationality of their Australian citizenship - partly as a deterrent, partly to prevent them returning.

Abbott, though, wants to go further. He wants to cancel the passports of Australian-born jihadists whose parents were born overseas, forcing them to seek citizenship in the country of their ancestry. That would cover the likes of Sharrouf, the son of Lebanese migrants, although not his children.

The proposal was produced, reportedly without warning, by Abbott and his Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, at a Cabinet meeting last week. It scandalised no fewer than six of their colleagues: Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop, George Brandis, Kevin Andrews, Barnaby Joyce and Christopher Pyne.

A blow-by-blow account of the meeting was leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald, which reported verbatim the objections of the six, among them Australia's Foreign Minister, Defence Minister and Attorney-General.

The critics raised, among other things, the question of whether another country would really accept a Sharrouf, and the problems inherent in the Immigration Minister - rather than the courts - deciding who could remain an Australian.

Beyond that, though, the row has given a fascinating peek into current leadership dynamics. For while it may represent Abbott's most serious Cabinet revolt to date - and on Monday he read the riot act to ministers over the leak - it appears to have shored up his authority rather than weakened it.

When he came close to being toppled in February, it was Coalition backbenchers who led the charge. Now backbenchers are urging Abbott to press ahead with the controversial proposal.

Why? Because it's popular "in the community" - so is capital punishment, incidentally - and those MPs want to keep their jobs. With Abbott overtaking Opposition leader Bill Shorten in the popularity stakes for the first time in 14 months, according to a Newspoll yesterday, he looks their best prospect.

In some News Corp papers, unnamed colleagues have accused Turnbull and Bishop of "confecting" their outrage and being "out of touch". With the community, you know. One described Turnbull's leadership ambitions as "dead in the water".