Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me get this straight: this is legislation about delegating power to someone else—and, what is more, changing the law to give rights to people based on the simple fact that they might win a gold medal. That is a decision that a minister should take. If we are to change the four-year time limit for the citizenship rights of an individual, that is okay with me; provided the minister has the right to say a lesser period is appropriate and, of course, is prepared to back that decision in this parliament.

What we are looking at here is that if someone comes in, there might be significant reasons why they just should not be a citizen of Australia. And they come in and say: ‘Get out of the road. I am the fastest skater, the highest jumper or the fastest runner. You’ve got to ignore every other part of my background because the law says I am allowed to get citizenship in the shortest possible period.’ Now that is not good law. Of course there are opportunities for those things.

When one talks about sporting identities, as mentioned in this legislation, I note that this year there has been a lot of reporting about the upcoming Soccer World Cup. The reality is that this year the English team looks like it will be represented in South Africa in the Soccer World Cup. In the previous world cup they missed out; they were not good enough as a national team. And everyone knew why. Their domestic competition is full of foreigners. There is nothing wrong with foreigners. But this has happened to their cricket teams. They are so busy hiring good cricketers from other parts of the world that their domestic competition has not produced enough good local cricketers.

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