Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005. I say that because I believe that since 1948 a formal system of Australian citizenship has served our nation well. I also want to deal with some of the history, because I think we should be very careful at the moment. If this debate goes wrong, as I fear it is going to, and migration becomes a political issue yet again, for short-term political gain, then Australia as a nation will be the short-term, medium-term and long-term loser.

As we would all appreciate, it was in 1948 that the then Labor Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, legislated a brave, forward-looking response to the economic challenges that faced our nation in the postwar era. I think it is important that we place some of this on the record. Postwar reconstruction demanded that we as a nation increase our immigration to grow our population and our economy. In doing so, immigration proved a resounding success. But, looking back on more than 55 years of citizenship, immigration has given us much more than a labour force and a bigger population. Migrants, be they Greek, Italian, Vietnamese or Somalian, have made Australia the open, vibrant society that exists today. Migrants offer us a range of important experiences, values and traditions.

As a member of parliament representing a prominent multicultural community in the electorate of Batman, I have taken great pleasure in attending all but two citizenship ceremonies in the City of Darebin in the decade since I was elected, in March 1996. I do that because I think it is not an insignificant decision to take out Australian citizenship, to actually make that public declaration of support for Australia as a nation. I congratulate each and every one of those people who have taken out citizenship. I encourage others who have not taken up the opportunity to become Australian citizens to do so in the foreseeable future. It is interesting to note that the records show that those who fail to take up that opportunity tend to predominantly come from the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Others value it and grab it at the first opportunity.

On Australia Day last year a record was set, with 12,000 people pledging their commitment to Australia in 275 ceremonies across the country. This year a new record was set, with 14,000 people becoming Australian citizens by pledging their commitment publicly to our nation. New citizens understand that when they take up Australian citizenship we do not require them to forget their country of origin or to forget their traditions and culture. That is why immigration in Australia has been so successful. Not only have we welcomed people and encouraged them to embrace Australian citizenship but also we have clearly accepted publicly that we do not expect them to walk away from the traditions and cultures of the country from which they came. I am proud to say publicly that that is because Australia is not a closed, xenophobic nation.

Each citizenship ceremony presents us with an opportunity to take pride in Australia, our way of life and our democratic, tolerant society which welcomes with open arms people from all over the world. The nature of the program has changed over the last 50 years. Initially people came from war-torn Europe, then from Asia and, more recently, from important places such as Africa and the Middle East.

On that note, can I say that Australia has been criticised over recent years because of the way the Howard government has treated asylum seekers. I simply say that the debate has always been about the integrity of the system. It is about making sure that anyone who applies for formal citizenship of Australia is given an equal go at having the merits of that application properly considered in an independent process which is highly honest in its decision making. I simply say in response to the government’s actions, which were for political reasons, that a Labor government would show compassion for these people whilst maintaining the integrity of the system. I think it is very important for the other side of the House to start considering that at the moment.

As far as I am concerned, it is not just migrants who need to understand and appreciate Australian values, culture and traditions but all Australians. We need more Australian studies in our schools and more appreciation of the history of our Indigenous peoples. Those of us who were born in Australia need to give serious thought to the value attached to Australian citizenship. It is very important that the government continues to promote the value of citizenship. It should be regarded as being of value not only by those who come to Australia and want to become Australian citizens but also by all of us who are fortunate enough to be born in this lucky country.

I am simply proud to be an Australian. I am very proud of the fact that Australia has one of the most highly successful managed immigration programs in the world—something that other countries aspire to. Clearly at the core of that success is the issue of citizenship and our willingness to grant citizenship to people seeking to come to Australia. But, in doing so, we must never forget that citizenship not only gives us rights but also gives us obligations. When a person becomes an Australian citizen, they actually accept those obligations.

Just as Australians have wholeheartedly embraced the history, cultures and traditions of our societies, I believe that migrants desire—and they should be encouraged—to learn about Australian history and the Australian way of life of so-called Australians. Having said that, I simply say in response to the government’s discussion paper on citizenship: I cannot see how a so-called test for people seeking to take out our citizenship can increase their understanding of our history and traditions. The discussion paper refers to the following types of questions: in the United States, what is the colour of the American flag; in Canada, how many constituencies make up the federal parliament; alternatively, in the United Kingdom, where does the jury system operate in the court system of the United Kingdom? What a range of questions to determine whether or not people can become citizens of those countries! Let us be frank about this debate. If you want a discussion about the values and history of Australia, then it should apply to all of us. To imply that we should now have those so-called questions in a test to determine whether or not you can be an Australian citizen is just plain wrong. It takes the eye off the main game in terms of how we maintain the integrity of a system that works out properly, at the first point, whether or not people are potentially a danger to Australian society.

I think this is actually borne out by our success. We have diversity in values that we all accept. We also have people who actually want to take out Australian citizenship as soon as possible. But just think about one of those countries that we now refer to in respect of a test of citizenship. Let us go to some statistics. In Australia, one in four Australians were born overseas, which is much higher than many comparable countries. For example, in the United States, the ratio is one in 10 were born overseas. We have succeeded because we have done the right thing by those people who want to settle in Australia and make a contribution to it.

I only have to walk down High Street in Preston, in my electorate, to see the embodiment of a truly multicultural society. In my local community there are people from more than 120 different ethnic backgrounds. There are those who came here 50 years ago and those who came here only a matter of weeks ago seeking refugee settlement. Australia’s living history shows a long commitment to multicultural values through its strong migration program. In Victoria, where I come from, almost a quarter of the population were born overseas in one of 233 countries. And we want to make it harder for people to become Australian citizens! There are more than 180 languages and dialects and 116 religious faiths. A significant number of these people were refugees—initially from Europe after the Second World War and more recently from the former Yugoslavia, Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Somalia. Many of those Somalian immigrants reside in my electorate before they move to the north, more often than not, to the electorate of Scullin for permanent settlement because of the opportunity to buy a house there. Houses are cheaper in Scullin than in Batman.

These immigrants make an invaluable contribution to the Australian way of life and underpin our open-minded ethos and Australian values which we are all proud of and grateful for. This bill helps to improve the situation of migrants affected under old laws, such as those prohibiting dual citizenship. For this reason, I welcome some of the changes in this bill to improve opportunities for those who aspire to Australian citizenship. However, I wish to also point to several gaps in the legislation that need to be closed. These changes allow former citizens to resume their citizenship with only one condition attached—that they be of good character. They also provide the opportunity for former Australian citizens who lost their citizenship under the former section 17 to apply for citizenship by conferral.

However, I would like to qualify my support with a call to include those seeking citizenship under former section 18. There remain a large number of children of Maltese immigrants who are unable to seek Australian citizenship because their parents had to renounce their Australian citizenship on return to Malta. Labor is seeking an amendment to section 21 of the bill to allow children of the former Australian citizens covered under former section 18 the right to apply for citizenship by conferral. There are around 3,000 Maltese children who do not have a right to Australian citizenship. However, the children of Australian citizens who renounced their citizenship under section 17 because, for example, they were working overseas, do have the right to seek citizenship. This is an inequitable situation which must be addressed. Children under section 17 and 18 should be given equal opportunity to bid for their citizenship. While I welcome many of the changes included in this bill, I urge the government to consider this amendment.

The other change that I wish to speak about is to permanent residency. The government indicated in 2005 it would increase the term of permanent residency before granting citizenship from two to three years. However, due to delays in the bill being debated this amendment has been revised and today the government is clearly seeking to increase the term from two to four years. This is in line with a proposal within the government’s recently announced citizenship discussion paper. At the time the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs justified the extension from two to three years as necessary to contain the home-grown terrorist threat. That was the nature of the proposed amendment. At that time the then citizenship minister said that the longer migrants spent in Australian society before gaining citizenship, the less vulnerable they were to falling in with extreme groups.

I indicate that the opposition accepts the extension of the term of residency from two to three years, but I also indicate that I personally am opposed to that. I can see no reason why you do not work out at the character test whether these people are a danger to Australian society. It is your responsibility to do it then and there. There is no reason to increase it from two to three years, and there is no reason to now go from three to four years. This is just not justifiable. If the government were doing its job then it would have weeded out any problems in the initial character tests. The problems that exist in Australia, which are an absolute minority of difficulties, reflect on the government’s past failure.

I also go to the fact that in its discussion paper the government has not outlined any reasons for increasing the term, particularly on the back of such a recent proposal to go from two to three years. Effectively, what the Howard government wants to do is double the term within just four years without any justification. How does it justify this, looking back on the year of 2005—a year marked by significant environmental and social issues? It was a year that commenced in the tragic aftermath of the tsunami of 26 December, 2004. It saw Hurricane Katrina devastate New Orleans in Louisiana. The world remembered the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima. The 1.3 billionth Chinese citizen was born. Pope John Paul II died, and Britain released its commission for Africa. In America, Condoleezza Rice became the Secretary of State. Suicide bombers killed 55 people on London’s commuter system. An Australian citizen, Mr Van, was hung for trying to smuggle heroin into Singapore, and here in Australia global condemnation was received for the race riots that broke out in Sydney, bringing an end to an eventful 2005.

Obviously it was an eventful year marked by many significant milestones, achievements and tragedies, but it was nothing like the year of 2001, when the US terrorist attacks changed the world as we knew it. It was on the back of the world’s response to these attacks that the changes to the Australian citizenship bills were initially introduced, changing the term of residency from two to three years. That is wrong. It is not justified, and today the proposal to go to four years is even more unjustified.

In my speech this evening I also stated that the debate on Australian citizenship had been a long one. Yet these changes to the term of residency proposed by the government are significant changes imposed suddenly and without justification or rationale. This is not to say that, in seeking to understand the government’s reasoning for this increase in the permanent residency term, the opposition does not understand that compared with other countries we are generous in seeking to encourage people to take out citizenship. We think they should.

Obviously it is about understanding Australian values, but it is also about getting the character test right at the first point—not now trying to suggest that, by delaying when you can actually take out citizenship in Australia, you have a greater opportunity to weed out terrorists because they have a greater understanding of the Australian way of life and values. To put it bluntly, that is crap. It is about time we had a proper debate about where migration is going in Australia and stopped using it as a political football for short-term political reasons, which this government has done all too often over the last 10 years.

This brings me to the English language test. All the migrants I speak to—those who are now retired, those who have been here for a fair period of time and the new arrivals—say they have one desire in life: to get the skills to get a job in Australia. If you want to do something about English language training and numeracy in Australia, you should make it part of the operation of the Job Network, because it is there that they should get the skills which are part and parcel of getting them a job sooner rather than later. Many of the migrants that actually built Australia in the postwar period learned functional English on the job. It is now, in retirement, that they have a greater opportunity to go and engage in English language classes so they can communicate with and better understand their grandchildren. Their desire in the first instance was always to concentrate on creating economic opportunities for their family by getting a job. I would have thought that is where we should be attaching any additional resources in terms of the debate on English language.

Since 1996, the government have cut almost $11 million in English language opportunities for migrants in Australia. They are to be condemned, yet they now suggest we have a new test on the English language too. I can see the minister for migration, the parliamentary secretary for citizenship and the Prime Minister frequently attending a range of ceremonies around Australia that are well attended by migrants. The truth is that a lot of those people, and especially their parents, would fail the so-called English language test that the Prime Minister now wants to put in place.

I raise these issues because they are serious. This is why there is a divergence of views between the government and the opposition on some of the citizenship issues that are currently being debated. But I simply want to say it is also wrong to increase the period of permanent residency from two to three or four years retrospectively. These people have sought to take out citizenship on the basis of rules that existed. We do not do it on taxation, because it is wrong, so why should we do it on citizenship?

This bill as it currently stands ignores the plight of permanent residents hoping to get their citizenship status approved within the immediate future. This has implications for people who have been planning further studies, as those without humanitarian visas cannot access FEE-HELP from the government, and also for people hoping to obtain permanent residency over the next few months, as they will have to wait a year before becoming eligible. I do not consider this fair. Is this the Australian way—raise people’s expectations and then fail them because a new, retrospective bill is passed? The definition of citizenship is elusive because it encompasses so much that is intangible, but surely the government’s rationale for changing such an important bill should not be elusive. I stand alongside my colleagues in supporting the amendment but oppose an increase of permanent residency from two to four years and simply say in my personal view that there is no justification even for going to three years.

That aside, there are changes in the bill that the opposition and I support. Citizenship has served Australia well. The last thing we need now is a politically motivated debate about citizenship and migration in the lead-up to yet another election. Let us have a debate that really counts about issues such as industrial relations and climate change and questions of taxation and welfare reform, rather than demonising migration for short-term political gain just to try to best position oneself to occupy the Treasury benches of government. The community has had a gutful, and it is about time all members of the House lived up to the expectations of the Australian community, which values respect of Australian citizenship.

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