Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017. I am Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. I have worked with the opposition to get broad terms of reference up for the committee's current inquiry into migrant settlement outcomes.. A number of those terms of reference look at settlement services, and there is strong consideration of young migrants who've been involved in crime. This is a bipartisan committee. We are endeavouring to come up with a strategy that best helps migrants who arrive in Australia, but we are also looking at section 501(6) of the Migration Act—the character test.

The reason the inquiry is giving special consideration to youth migrant crime is that, sadly, young people from the South Sudanese community are overrepresented for certain crimes in Victoria. When it comes to aggravated crimes or home invasions, South Sudanese born young people are the next group behind Australian born young people. When it comes to serious assaults, again they are in second position behind Australian born young people. It has become very apparent, too, that, a number of South Sudanese immigrants did not have the English skills they required when they arrived in Australia. What has happened was that, if they had the English ability of a grade 6 student, they were put in to year 9. Eventually, a number of them have fallen out of the education system and, through no fault of their own, have failed to gain employment. The situation has become very bad for a number of them.

We have spoken about what this bill is trying to look at when it comes to citizenship in Australia. My personal view is that Australian citizenship is an absolute badge of honour. All members of parliament talk about citizenship—the responsibility to respect the rights and liberties of the Australian community and to uphold and obey Australia's laws , serve on juries et cetera. This is always spoken of at citizenship ceremonies.

The first thing I'd like to discuss is increasing the general residence requirement, which means an applicant for Australian citizenship will need to demonstrate a minimum of four years as a permanent resident prior to the application for citizenship. In New Zealand it is five years; the UK, five years; France, five years; the US, five years; Germany, eight years: the opposition would have to agree that a four-year term is fair and reasonable.

We hear the concerns raised about English. Every single group that has come before the migration committee, whether it be a refugee support advocacy group or others, has advised the committee of the importance of English when it comes to getting involved in the Australian community as well as in the education system and for getting jobs. It is just so vital. With regard to those on humanitarian visas, initially the number of hours provided by government was 510. Prior to that, there was an extra 400 hours of special assistance package. The good news is, and this was going to be one of the recommendations of the committee, that young migrants, especially those on humanitarian visas in particular, need extra hours and this year the government, under the Adult Migrant English Program, has, from 1 July, included an extra 490 hours, which is an excellent measure.

English is also important when we talk about security. I, along with a number of colleagues from both sides of politics, recently visited the US, the UK, Germany and Sweden. We heard firsthand, when it comes to extremism, how important it is to ensure that young people who may be radicalised have a certain level of the native tongue, whether it be Swiss or German, or English for here in Australia. It is vitally important, especially in the UK. There's always a danger that when young people get into boroughs, as they are called in the UK—as we heard in Sweden, one of the greatest concerns the intelligence experts told us about was that if a person's not working and is hanging around with other people who aren't working, and all they do is talk jihad all day, then eventually bad things happen.

When it comes to what the government is doing with the English test, I concur it is definitely the way to go. You have to put some responsibility back onto people to make the grade. It's something that is so important, to become an Australian citizen, to make sure you that have English to back you up. There will be exceptions for those over the age of 60 years and under the age of 16 years. When it comes to signing a values statement, applicants undertake to integrate into and contribute to the Australian community in accordance with Australian values. Values based questions will be added to the citizenship test. The current Australian values statement includes the understanding of and respect:

… for the freedom and dignity of the individual, freedom of religion, commitment to the rule of law, Parliamentary democracy—

as well as—

… the English language, as the national language, is an important unifying element of Australian society.

That is very true.

When it comes to countries around the world that are regarded as on par with Australia when it comes to compassion, I don't think you can go past Sweden taking in 250,000 Syrian refugees. And yet in Sweden they have 100 hours that they set aside to cover what does it mean to become a Swedish citizen. What we are doing here, and what Minister Peter Dutton has done here, is no doubt very much in line with what the Swedish government has done, and I cannot see why the opposition would not support this measure for the best assimilation with the Australian community and to understand our laws. We have seen what's happened in Victoria, and, when we have had representatives from the African community, they have explained to us that young people who migrate to Australia quite often do not have an understanding of how Australian law works. So, again, I strongly support this statement.

In addition to the existing police checks which are undertaken as part of any application for citizenship, an applicant will also be assessed for specific conduct that is inconsistent with Australian values, such as domestic or family violence; criminality, including female genital mutilation; or involvement in gangs and organised crime. To me, that is a very fair and reasonable thing to do. I have put it out there before that, if a person is on a visa and is committing violent gang-related crimes, whether it be in Melbourne or anywhere else, or is an extremist, whether an Islamic extremist or a right-wing extremist, then, as far as I am concerned, if they are on a visa and their character is bad, they should have their visa cancelled automatically, especially if they commit serious crimes. At the moment, if someone on a visa commits a sexual offence against a child or receives a term of imprisonment for 12 months or more, then they have their visa cancelled automatically. In my view, that should be changed to include any term of imprisonment, especially for violent and serious gang-related crimes.

Other key measures include expanding the power to revoke citizenship when satisfied that a person has become a citizen as a result of fraud or misrepresentation by allowing revocation without a prior criminal conviction of fraud. The minister must be satisfied that it would be contrary to the public interest for the person to remain a citizen. Each person being considered for revocation of their Australian citizenship would be given natural justice. Again, if a person wants to be an Australian citizen, we do not want them, before they become a citizen, committing crimes of fraud to assist with their application.

Amendments to the provisions would require applicants aged under 18 to also meet the good character test requirements and would extend the bar on approval for criminal offences to all citizenship application streams. Currently only those over the age of 18 years are required to do that. Going back to the situation in Melbourne, we have seen very violent crimes committed by people aged 16 years or even younger. Sometimes they are on five lots of bail. To me, it is only fair and reasonable that a person who wants to become an Australian citizen must be of good character and must not be involved in serious and organised violent crimes.

So, overall, I think these are very worthy changes. It sometimes seems that, for the opposition, this is the debate they do not want to have. But, if you listened to the evidence to the migration committee—and I say it has been a bipartisan committee—I think you would find that, overwhelmingly, No.1 is the requirement to have English to fit into Australian society. In particular, we had evidence from refugee advocates who said that, when it comes to a person getting a job, it is important to have that basic English understanding, to get in the door, to get that job, and for occupational health and safety. So what the government is doing here is very much in line with what we have heard in the migration committee. Obviously when it comes to the character test, there has been a different view from, say, police, compared to the view from refugee advocates, but, in saying that, overall, I keep coming back to the importance of English in the view of all those who appeared before the committee, including the need to actually push someone to make sure that they do everything they can to understand English so as to fit into Australian society.

I congratulate the minister for putting this legislation forward. I will be very interested to hear what comes back from the Senate inquiry, because I am sure they will hear a lot of evidence similar to the evidence I have heard through the migration committee.

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