Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to join my colleagues in speaking on the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005. In doing so I will flag the general concerns that have been outlined by the member for Watson, who made the first speech on this side in this second reading debate on this bill and set out the concerns of the Labor Party around one of the major changes proposed in this bill—that being the change to four years residence before a person can become a citizen. He also took the time to set out a number of the issues that we support within this bill, because it is a package that has a number of components to it. Some of them are very positive things—for example, some increased flexibility of the periods of time that can be taken into account in seeking to qualify for citizenship.

It saddens me to be standing in this place talking about this legislation on citizenship when most of the time in my job when I am dealing with citizenship I am at much more joyous occasions. Like the member for Blaxland who spoke before me, I have a very ethnically mixed electorate. I go to citizenship ceremonies all the time. Often there are two sessions, one session after the other, with a hundred people each time. At these sessions, we would have people from 60 or 70 different countries taking out citizenship. It fills me with great heart when I see the sort of gene pool that we are expanding in Australia; it is a country with an extraordinary mix of people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds and of different ages and experiences.

I think my electorate of Gellibrand has to date set a very good example for many parts of the country on how people can live together very harmoniously. We have gone through being an area full of Maltese, Italian and Greek migrants immediately after the war to being home to large numbers of Vietnamese citizens. They are now the highest ethnic group in my electorate after those who are Australian born. We now have a growing African community, mostly from countries in the Horn of Africa. It makes for a vibrant, exciting, interesting and wonderful part of Australia to live in.

I am just slightly disappointed that we are here talking not about the positive things that come from opening our country to citizens from around the world but about some of the negatives. The government is particularly focusing on some of the penalties, if you like, that have to be paid, rather than embracing those who have chosen our country, who want to make this their home and who are often the most fervent advocates of all the things that Australia is known for around the world. As I said, my part of Melbourne has been a very good advertisement for successful multiculturalism. I know that it is not the same around all of the country, but we need to make sure that the measures we take to change this, like some of those that have been debated today, will actually enhance and support, rather than oppose, a vast range of new citizens being welcomed into our country.

When I was campaigning for my election the first time around—some eight or nine years ago now—I can remember, and I said this in my first speech, how impressed I was at meeting a Vietnamese monk who runs a Buddhist temple in my electorate. He explained to me how he felt, not just when he was first granted citizenship but on the first election day after he was granted citizenship. He had a sense of acute obligation but also excitement that he was here in Australia, able to help shape the future of his new country. I thought that was such a humbling thing to have described to someone who was born here and who to some extent has taken their citizenship for granted. I think all of us who have had this experience cannot really appreciate the sense of satisfaction that many new citizens feel. That is why they go on, by and large, to become such valuable contributors to our community.

It worries me that a test, whether it is two years, three years or four years, is not actually going to be the measure of that. What is going to be the measure is how we make sure that we encourage new arrivals to embrace our community and society and to enhance it with their different experiences and backgrounds. This lets us all move forward. Probably no-one in the House disagrees with those aims. What we disagree with sometimes is the way that the government proposes to effect these changes, particularly the silly change of going to four years. There seems to be no justification that it will doing anything to create a more welcoming environment or, in fact, deliver some type of better person to become a citizen, which seems to be what the government thinks it will deliver.

I am also very concerned about the government saying that this is a way to enable people to become more settled in our community when funding for some of the very things that would help people settle is being cut or stopped—like the $10 million English program that has been slashed. These are not consistent positions for the government to be taking. It might be better to look at some of the restrictions that exist—for example, the times when people can take up that English training—rather than slashing the money, extending the period and saying that people should go off and somehow integrate on their own and learn English on their own without any assistance from the government.

I wanted to raise those general issues and express my support for the positions that have been indicated by my colleagues, but I also want to talk about two particular issues. One is how this legislation affects some people who are Maltese-born. This issue has been raised by a number of my colleagues already, so I do not intend to go over all of the detail. But I have over 2,000 people living in my electorate who were born in Malta—and obviously a large number in addition to that who would have Maltese heritage. I know that there are particular concerns about this bill, because it is not fixing a problem that has occurred for a number of families when they have returned to Malta and been required to renounce their citizenship. That has had an impact on their children and they have had to seek to re-establish a connection with Australia.

Because a number of my other colleagues have already dealt with this, I just want to add my voice to those concerns. It is important that we take the opportunity to fix this situation. There are probably more Cassars, Vellas and Davids in my electorate than there are in many others. People with a Maltese heritage have been outstanding community members and activists; there is a real reason for us to make sure that those who have a longstanding link with this country are not denied it because we fail to make some fairly technical changes that would just make sure that people are not left out.

I turn to another issue, which I think none of my colleagues will have raised. It is a particularly technical issue, but I want to flag it because it is something that a person I have a great deal of respect for has been working on for some time. Professor Kim Rubenstein, a professor at ANU, specialises in a range of issues dealing with citizenship. She has become involved with the case of a woman called Susan Walsh. Susan Walsh’s name is on the record because there has already been a large amount of litigation about this issue, but the facts are probably not well known around this House.

Susan Walsh was born in Australia to an Australian citizen parent but is not considered an Australian citizen. This odd circumstance has come about because Ms Walsh was born in Papua at a time when Papua was part of Australia—or was regarded for these purposes as part of Australia. Her father was an Australian citizen and her mother was an indigenous Papuan. Because she was born an Australian citizen and because of the period she was born in, she has now found that she is stuck in no-man’s-land under section 10 of the Australian Citizenship Act. She cannot apply for citizenship by descent, because at the time she was born she was born in Australia. One of the qualifications for applying for citizenship by descent is to be born outside Australia. Because of the quirks of history and the changing status of Papua, she is, for the purposes of that test, regarded as having been born in Australia, but for the purposes of whether she is an Australian citizen she does not get the protection of that act.

I do not want to go through all of the complicated circumstances. This is not the time or place to do that. I am sure that the departmental officials, having been involved in litigation that has been taken by Ms Walsh, will be acutely aware of the intricacies of this case. But it seems to me that when we are making a range of other changes it would be worth while examining whether the small number of people who were affected by this change could also be picked up by some sort of amendment to this bill.

There were provisions made at the time which allowed for the transfer. When Papua New Guinea became independent, unfortunately there were not notification provisions; it was not possible to go out and tell all of the people who might have been affected by this that they needed to reapply for citizenship within a period of time. The fact that Ms Walsh did not know about this meant that she lost her citizenship without being aware of it. It seems to me that it is worth putting these concerns on the record. When we have people with such an intimate connection to Australia not being able to avail themselves of Australian citizenship, it does seem to put us in a pretty silly position.

We live in a country where we want to encourage those who live here and have a connection with us. We should encourage those who have Australian parents and might have been born here, moved overseas and want to come back—they are the very people that we want to encourage to live in Australia, make it their home and have the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship. It is shame, then, that someone in Ms Walsh’s situation misses out. I would urge, if it is at all possible and appropriate, for the government to take this good opportunity to fix that problem—if indeed it is easy to fix. I imagine that when cases are contested in this way there are some technical problems that maybe the rest of us cannot foresee, but I would certainly like to know what they are. It seems sensible to me to take the opportunity to use this bill to fix that problem and obviously at the same time fix the problem that has emerged in relation to the large Maltese community.

I am not going to add any further to those comments, because many of my colleagues have already raised a range of other issues. I am pleased to be able to speak about citizenship. It is an important part of the fabric of our country; it is important for all of us who welcome so many new citizens and see the happiness and delight that there is across so many faces when people know that they have been formally welcomed into our community. Let’s make sure that we continue to do that and continue to support them rather than putting in place silly, arbitrary rules like this increase to four years that will do nothing to enhance their experience of Australia and nothing to ensure that they become the upstanding and worthy citizens that we hope all people who take out Australian citizenship will become.

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