Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with some relish to speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009 and our amendments to it. Citizenship is a qualification that my constituents hold dear, and overwhelmingly so. I was particularly taken with the absolute avalanche of congratulations that I received as a federal member when the Howard led government introduced the citizenship test in 2007. My constituents were saying to me ad nauseam, ‘Thank goodness a government has had the good sense to realise how valuable we as Australians consider our Australian citizenship. We have been giving it away as though it was to be found in a weeties packet for far too long.’

So the first thing I want to reinforce is that Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of very firm tests for acquiring Australian citizenship—not just that applicants do not break the law whilst they do not have Australian citizenship, not just that they spend a certain period of time in Australia as a resident and not just that they seek Australian citizenship; but that they actually involve themselves in gaining an understanding of Australian history and culture, what it is to be Australian, what the responsibilities are of an Australian citizen, and the give and take of being an Australian citizen. It is absolutely fundamental we should ask of those persons who are born in another nation and come to this country that, in order to qualify as a citizen and have the rights of those who are born in Australia, they jump through the hoops. Within reason, I believe those hoops should be very tough; and overwhelmingly my constituents believe that those hurdles should be pretty tough.

My colleague the member for Hindmarsh said earlier in this House that he vividly remembers his own citizenship ceremony. He was very small at the time but it is burned into his memory as that occasion when he gained equal rights with his fellow citizens. Prior to that he was probably in those days referred to as a ‘New Australian’. Regardless of the pride some quite obviously take, after they have received their citizenship, in referring to themselves as ‘New Australians’, the term was in the past not always meant as one of endearment. There was almost some slight against those who were viewed by the population at large as being ‘New Australians’. It implied that they did not belong.

But I believe that we are a multicultural country today. Amongst many other wonderful places in my huge electorate of Kalgoorlie, I represent the community that is Port Hedland in Western Australia in the wonderful Pilbara. I swear it is one of the most multicultural population centres in Australia. We have a very buoyant and hardworking Muslim population from nations around the globe. They are integrated as well as any other group. We have Koreans, we have South Africans, we have Zimbabweans, we have English and we have North Africans. We have such a multicultural mix. And they all aspire to become citizens of this country. That is for a long list of very good reasons. We as Australians, especially in this place, know full well that Australia is the finest destination in the world. There are, right now, tens of millions of people languishing in refugee camps around the trouble spots of the world, and overwhelmingly they want to go to either the United States of America or Australia.

The UNHCR does a mighty job in putting in place a conduit to process those applications from refugees living in extreme hardship to enable the UNHCR to have a moderated, regulated process to disseminate those successful applicants to destinations around the world. This leads me to another point that I feel very strongly about along with my constituents. I am not aware of any group within my 2.3 million square kilometres of Australia that has any interest in lowering the standards for those in circumstances less comfortable so that they should have an automatic right to come to this nation.

As I said before, they highly value citizenship; they highly value their own birthright as, in the main, native born Australians; and they think it is absolutely ludicrous that we should have a government that wants to lower the standards for entry into this country. They think it absolutely foolish that we should have a government that wants to soften our degree of border protection. This particular bill is not perhaps able to be construed as softening our border protection, but it is another change to legislation that impinges upon becoming a permanent resident of this country and getting citizenship—and acquiring citizenship through other means such as perhaps not being sound of mind and therefore having to have a lesser test when it comes to the understanding of our culture.

But I take this opportunity to remind the House that after the 2007 election there was substantial change made to our immigration legislation, and as a result of that we have had an avalanche of unannounced arrivals in our waters—to date, some 32 vessels containing 1,518 people, none of them invited, all of them ignoring the process organised by the UNHCR and all of them prepared to risk their lives at sea, often in unseaworthy boats. History shows that lives have been lost at sea on too many occasions because of the trade that is plied by these scurrilous, unprincipled traders in human lives. Yet they have been encouraged to do so by the very nature of the changes that this government brought into place with its numbers in 2007. It is so unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of my constituents that this softening of our borders be allowed.

I am talking about the consequences of these softened borders from the perspective of the likelihood of loss of life at sea on one hand but the absolutely unholy trade that is conducted by opportunists to line their own pockets at the expense of human misery on the other. It is something that a good government would endeavour to deter, but the policies that have been put in place by this government have done nothing more than to hold up a very large sign that says: ‘People smugglers, you are open for business once again. Tell your potential customers to come on down to the great south land, the land of milk and honey.’

There is no dispute that we are the finest nation in the world, with a great environment and great living standards. There is no question that in the refugee camps around war-torn sectors of the world the word is that, if you can get to Australia, you have reached Valhalla. This current government is paving the way to Christmas Island, with a quick hop to Australia and a direct line to Australian citizenship—and my constituents loathe that concept. They want to see tougher borders. They want to see these refugees who are in dire circumstances go through the process coordinated by the UNHCR and to use that process. They think that Australia boxes above its weight when it comes to taking refugees on a per capita basis. We are doing the right thing. We can hold our head up high and be proud to be Australians on the basis of our involvement in humanitarian works around the globe. So there is no justification for this government to take a weak approach to immigration and border protection.

The amendments that we are making to this relatively minor piece of legislation are necessary to bring the attention of the House to the fact we do not want to give away our citizenship on the basis of possibly picking up a few medals. I find it rather distasteful that we as members of this place are expected to support legislation that means we can simply pick sports stars from around the globe, invite them to compete under the banner of Australia and then hand out citizenship certificates through some regulated administrative process so as they can compete and win medals for Australia. I believe the sports minded Australian population are not just sports minded; they are also proud and they have a very strong sense of values and fair play when it comes to sporting competition—unless we are playing the English, of course, and then all bets are off. But I do not believe Australians want to witness an Australian team or the Australian nation winning something at the expense of diluting the value of Australian citizenship.

However, if that is going to be done, it ought not be done through some administrative process. Australians have a healthy disregard for bureaucrats of all description. They do not want us to be winning medals and getting international accolades on the basis of trading our citizenship rights for those medals, and they certainly do not want that process made possible by some bureaucrat who has been empowered by cheap legislation to do so. If that is going to happen, then it ought to be via the process of the ministerial discretion that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship holds and needs enhanced, possibly. But ministers of the Crown are subject to public scrutiny through many processes. If a minister of the Crown wants to denigrate his or her reputation by making a puny decision to denigrate our citizenship for the sake of some sporting medals then be it on their head, but I am sure they will not shine bright in the eyes of the Australian population.

I have very little else to say about this legislation except to reiterate that Australian citizenship—earned by birthright or earned by newcomers to Australia after a reasonable period of time, after having gained an understanding of our history and culture, after having qualified through a rigorous test in that regard and having an understanding of the English language so that they can attend to their responsibilities at law as Australians—is the most paramount value to maintain. If the passage of this legislation dilutes in any way the value of Australian citizenship or if it encourages values that I see as un-Australian then it will be bad legislation. I strongly support the amendments we have made here today and commend those amendments to the House.

See this speech in context