Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009. Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, as a member of the coalition, you would know, like others on this side of the chamber, that we introduced a citizenship test several years ago to ensure that noncitizen Australians understood the roles and responsibilities and obligations of citizenship when they had served a period of time, a residency requirement, in Australia; when they had been of good character and when they had not been unlawful during their period of time in Australia—and of course there were some other criteria. We wanted to make sure that citizenship held the value in Australian society that it should.

We were concerned that functional English be part of that citizenship test. We felt that it was difficult for a new Australian to understand the values, responsibilities and obligations that go particularly with citizenship—for example, being required to serve on jury duty, to defend the nation if called upon and to vote in the compulsory elections which are held in Australia as part of our parliamentary democracy. To fully participate as an Australian citizen exercising those responsibilities requires functional English, and so we included English testing as part of the citizenship test.

We are concerned about the amendments which are now being rushed through this chamber and which came through from the Senate literally just a few hours ago—in particular the one to do with elite athletes. That amendment is all to do with an obscene, desperate move to ensure that we have Ms Tatiana Borodulina able to have citizenship by 22 September so she will be eligible to compete for Australia at the 2010 Winter Olympics. This is not what our citizenship is all about. We are quite sure Ms Borodulina is a wonderful person. We have no question about how fast she can skate, either. The issue is: should we change the law of this country so people can meet the citizenship requirements—which is demanded of someone joining an Olympics team in Australia or someone competing in certain tennis tournaments. Should we have their residency requirements discounted in order that they can get citizenship faster and then represent Australia in elite sport? We think that that sort of behaviour is unbecoming for the Rudd Labor government. We are somewhat embarrassed that this amendment in the form put up by the government should even be here. But deal with it we will.

If the government feels that simply slightly changing the wording of the amendment—changing the reference from ‘elite sport’ to something called ‘specified activities’—disguises the absolute intent of this bill, you only have to look at the instrument which will be used in deciding who can nominate a person for the special discount allowing them to receive Australian citizenship despite their time in Australia. That instrument specifies that nominations may only be brought forward from Tennis Australia or the Australian Olympic Committee. So I am afraid this is all about elite sportspeople being able to be given citizenship so that they can represent Australia even though they have not in fact served the appropriate time in the country for them to ordinarily be eligible for Australian citizenship.

You can imagine there are a whole range of people who may say: ‘We need medals. We love our medals. We love our sport.’ Let me assure you that the minister himself very quickly understood the embarrassing situation he had put the government in after his first media announcement of this new piece of legislation—the announcement made on 31 August, just a few days ago. In the company of Ms Borodulina, Minister Evans said he hoped the changes would lead to ‘more gold medals for Australia at sporting events’. There was an outcry, of course, across the nation. People said: ‘No, we are not that sort of country. We don’t believe in medals at all costs. We don’t believe our citizenship should be discounted and devalued in that way.’ Minister Evans is astute, and so the very next day the AAP reported these quotations from Minister Evans. In response to the question, ‘Are these measures all about a grab for gold for Australia?’ he said very definitively: ‘No, they are not.’ I am afraid that when the only organisations able to nominate candidates to receive discounted residency requirements for Australian citizenship are Tennis Australia and the Australian Olympic Committee, if that citizenship is required to represent Australia, it is clear that this is sadly just a reference to Australian citizenship for medal prospects.

Quite clearly, the coalition does not support this amendment. On the other hand, we do agree that there are certain circumstances where an extraordinary human being can make an extraordinary contribution to our nation and it might be that, for whatever reasons, they have not been able to serve the four-year residency requirement that goes with an application for citizenship in this country. There was an example where an eminent scientist was serving his time in the Antarctic, which is not counted as Australian territory for citizenship purposes, I understand. He was a very eminent person who wished to become an Australian citizen and there were difficulties with his ability to meet the residency requirements.

We believe there may be a small number of other circumstances where the government of the day might choose to give citizenship to someone who can demonstrate that they have a very significant contribution to make to this nation. Therefore, we say that there should in fact be an amendment to this proposition, and that amendment would allow the minister to use his discretion in circumstances where there is an extraordinary person who is able to make a contribution to Australia and who, in receiving citizenship, will make that contribution to Australia.

We did have discretion like this some years ago, but the problem was that the minister’s discretion was able to be delegated and, in being delegated to a departmental official of the day, that delegation was abused and an unfortunate incident occurred. As a result of that, the ministerial discretion to grant citizenship on the basis of extraordinary national interest was removed, and right now no such discretion exists. We are proposing to amend the bill to reintroduce discretion for the minister, but that discretion would not be able to be delegated at all. It would also be transparent, in that any decision made by the minister to deliver citizenship to a certain person who demonstrated that their citizenship would be in the national interest would have to be both published on the departmental website and tabled in parliament. So there you have a transparent process and a process that cannot be delegated so it is not able to be abused by any other party.

We would also continue to require the person under consideration for that special conferral of citizenship to pass the citizenship test. We believe that that is a proper way to proceed. This amendment has no references whatsoever to how fast the person can skate or how hard they can hit a tennis ball. This discretion has nothing to do with medals to be won in the international arena. It is to do with a ministerial power which we do not expect would be used very often at all but which would be available where a person cannot meet the residency requirements but whose citizenship can be demonstrated to be in the national interest.

We are also concerned that there are people in Australia whose family, partners and children may be Australians and who have called Australia home for years but whose jobs require them to travel often and extensively outside the country. We know that it is difficult for people in those circumstances to apply for citizenship, because they will have great difficulty fulfilling the residency requirements that we now have in the Australian Citizenship Act. We have great sympathy for such people. They may work in the airline industries or the maritime industries—perhaps on oil rigs. We understand the difficulties these people might face. We agree that there should be some capacity for such people who meet certain criteria to gain Australian citizenship though their particular kind of work requires them to extensively travel outside Australia. But that situation, too, should not be automatic; it should be subject to ministerial discretion. We are therefore also proposing to amend the act to include a second ministerial discretion for awarding citizenship to offshore workers who cannot meet the residency requirements but who can demonstrate significant hardship or disadvantage because they cannot become citizens. I therefore move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“the House defers consideration of the bill until the following have occurred: the Government redrafts the bill so that it provides a simple ministerial discretion for those who cannot meet the residency requirements but whose citizenship can be demonstrated to be in the national interest; and the Government redrafts the bill so that it provides a simple ministerial discretion for awarding citizenship to offshore workers who cannot meet the residency requirements, but who can demonstrate significant hardship or disadvantage.”

These are second reading amendments; I will have more detailed third reading amendments when we get to that stage of the bill.

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