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

We have now circulated two amendments. There was a third amendment which we were considering, but this bill was, of course, introduced into the Senate. The Greens members in the Senate produced a virtually identical amendment to a part of the bill which originally required us to consider an exemption for citizenship testing for refugees who had come to Australia, had experienced torture and trauma when offshore and were experiencing a temporary physical or psychological disability. We were very concerned about that particular amendment. We felt that it would not serve the interest of the new refugee settlers at all, because they—particularly women from culturally very conservative backgrounds—might have found it a lot more difficult to find access to English language classes.

We were also concerned, given that these particular refugees who had experienced torture and trauma still needed to be in Australia for four years before applying for citizenship. So describing their condition still as temporary was rather problematic. So we moved an amendment to the effect that people with a permanent or long-term physical or mental incapacity be exempt from sitting the Australian citizenship test. You will understand in my reciting those words that there is no reference to refugees or people experiencing torture or trauma offshore. We felt that that was not an appropriate way to go The Greens felt likewise and their words were identical except that they substituted the word ‘long-term’ with ‘enduring’ physical or mental incapacity, so we were happy to support the Greens amendment, it being virtually identical to ours in sentiment. Therefore in the Senate we supported the amendments which changed ‘permanent physical or mental incapacity’ to ‘enduring physical or mental incapacity’ in relation to exemption for sitting the citizenship test.

We are very concerned about maintaining the integrity of the citizenship test, as I said before. We are very concerned that we never have our citizenship held in contempt. We do not believe that Australia, indeed a sports-loving nation, would appreciate having citizenship played with in a way that gave non-citizen elite athletes special concessions so they could compete in our name despite not having undertaken residency requirements that are required of all those who seek to reside permanently in this country as Australian citizens. We have deliberately not put a whole set of criteria around our amendment which gives a discretion to the minister to consider people whose citizenship would be in the Australian public interest. We have not put a great framework of special requirements around such consideration for the minister, because we believe in the integrity, transparency and accountability of the minister of the day, and I find it quite extraordinary that the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services a minute ago implied that the minister, in using that discretion, would not take on board the character of the person or whether or not they were appropriate to consider for Australian citizenship. It is quite an extraordinary indictment of the minister of the day to suggest that he could not make an appropriate assessment or judgment.

We have, however, bound the residency requirements to our amendment for a person who is required to work offshore. There are a number of special residency criteria in our amendment. I refer to those. A person is eligible to become an Australian citizen if the minister is satisfied that granting a certificate of Australian citizenship includes meeting a range of residency prerequisites. They include that, at the time the person made the application, the person was engaged in work that requires them to regularly travel outside Australia; the person was engaged in that kind of work for a total of at least two years during the period of four years immediately prior to or before the day the person made the application; the person was ordinarily resident in Australia throughout the period of four years immediately before the day the person made the application; the person was present in Australia for a total of at least 480 days during the period of four years immediately before the day the person made the application; the person was present in Australia for a total of at least 120 days during the period of 12 months immediately before the day the person made the application; and, the person has demonstrated they would suffer significant hardship or disadvantage if they did not receive citizenship.

From these and other criteria—including that the person was not present in Australia as an unlawful noncitizen at any time during the four years immediately before the day the person made the application; the person was a permanent resident for the period of 12 months immediately before the day the person made application; and the person has met the requirements of subsection 2A of the citizenship test—you can see that we have bounded the ministerial discretion and that in the case of a person who must work offshore those boundaries are substantial. When the parliamentary secretary stood here and said that we had not looked carefully at what other criteria had to be considered, that was completely disingenuous. I can only imagine that the parliamentary secretary had not read our amendments. That of course could be possible, because this bill has been so extraordinarily rushed into both the Senate and this House. We understand that if Ms Borodulina is not a citizen by next Tuesday she cannot in fact be considered for membership of the Australian Winter Olympics team.

Let me go back to where I began and say that we believe ministerial discretion is the appropriate way to deal with extraordinary circumstances where people cannot meet the residency requirements which are now to be applied under law when someone is seeking citizenship in this great country. We do not believe that you should trade off the rights to access Australian citizenship in the pursuit of medals for this country. We believe that is an abuse and misuse of the Australian Citizenship Act, and I think a lot of Australians would be embarrassed mightily if they saw this bill, in the form in which it has been presented, passing through this parliament. I therefore urge the government to consider, alternatively, ministerial discretion for someone who can demonstrate that citizenship would be in the national interest.

Let me also repeat that we have great sympathy for people who have to work offshore and who cannot therefore meet our residency requirements. We say that they too should be able to access ministerial discretion. In both cases this discretion should not be able to be delegated to any other party. In both cases any decisions made by the minister must be made transparent by being brought into parliament and also published on the departmental websites. We are supportive of the amendment moved in the Senate which has people with enduring physical or psychological, or permanent physical or psychological, difficulties and who cannot therefore understand and participate in a citizenship test, being exempted. We support that amendment. As I say, we had an amendment that echoed the words, but for one, in the Greens amendment.

There are other parts of this bill that we do support, and the parliamentary secretary referred to those. In particular, there has been some abuse in the past, with parents who have not been eligible for Australian citizenship using a loophole that existed in relation to their children’s eligibility criteria. We support that loophole being closed by this government.

Let me finally say that we must always uphold the integrity of, and show respect for, our citizenship as something that is not a right in this country. It certainly should not simply come at the time when you can tick a box and declare you have met the residency test. Amending a bill to introduce an act so that medals can simply be handed out to those who have a prospect of winning gold for our country in some elite sports event is a contempt in relation to the citizenship status of others in this country. I urge this government to restore the integrity of the citizenship test by accepting our amendments. That would mean that all Australians could continue to be proud of the way our Australian Citizenship Act works and could rest easier knowing that it would not become something to be manipulated by either Tennis Australia or the Olympics committee when they have a prospect who arrives too late into this country to be properly considered as eligible for Australian citizenship. I commend our amendments to the House.

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