Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I commend my colleague for her speech and asking the absolutely vitally important question here, and that is: why? Why do we need these changes?

I recently attended a community event, a discussion forum on these citizenship changes. It was organised by the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum. It was well attended, with a broad cross-section of views at that event. The fundamental question for everyone who spoke and also for those who responded at that event was, 'Why the changes?' What is the imperative here? What has broken?

Now, the government has not clearly articulated the reason why we need to change this legislation—why we need these changes. It has not clearly articulated what has broken on the English-language test. What is not working that ensures these major changes to the English-language test will see people required to have English at a university standard? What is broken now? What is not working now that requires this new standard of English?

The other question that people were asking was: why the increased length of time before you become a citizen? Again, what is broken here? What is the imperative here? Now, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in answer to a question yesterday, started at citizenship and ranged all over to get to homeland security and the new government agencies that he wants to set up, even though there are mixed feelings about that here in the bureaucracy in Canberra.

He had a number of meanders around the issue but he didn't actually come to the fundamental question that he was asked by someone from his own side, about why there is the need for these citizenship changes. As I said, what has broken on the English-language test? What is not working? What is causing problems in the Australian community—economic problems or social problems—in terms of the English-language test? What is the imperative?

When it comes to the citizenship issue, what is not working there, Minister? What is the imperative here? And, occasionally, because there's been no clear case for these changes—no clear case in terms of why have changes on the English-language test and no clear case on why have changes on the length of time before you can become a citizen—it has been suggested that they are driven by national security issues. Again, who said that?

The minister has not made the case clear on this front. He has not made the case clear on the changes for the English language test and he has not made the case clear in terms of changes to the citizenship requirements. And there are changes that seem to be embellished or buried in this notion that we are doing it for national security reasons. Who said that we need to make these changes to the English language test for citizenship—which government agencies, Minister?

That question was asked in question time yesterday, and the minister was all over the place in terms of his response. What is the imperative, the reason? Why are these changes taking place? In terms of the national security issue, we can't find any government agencies here in Canberra or throughout Australia that have suggested that we need to make these changes. We have been asking for advice from the minister. We have asked him to table the advice, to publicly release the advice, from the Department of Defence, from the Australian Signals Directorate, from the Attorney-General's Department, from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, from Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and from Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Is there advice from these agencies that suggests we need to make these changes to citizenship law? It would be good if there was such advice, because at least people would get an understanding—some reasoning, some rationale—as to why these major changes are affecting people's lives each and every day.

These are major changes that are having life-changing impacts on families right throughout Australia, and this government doesn't care. It doesn't care. It can't be bothered explaining the imperative. It can't be bothered explaining why these changes are being made. It can't be bothered explaining which security agencies, if any, suggested we should make these changes. My view is that there was no security agency making the suggestion that these changes should be made. It was just something that popped up, some thought bubble idea, like so much done by this government: 'Okay, we've got to be seen to be tough on national security issues. We've got to be seen to be tough, so we'll target our citizenship laws and come up with these crazy ideas'—without any consultation. There has been no consultation on these significant changes to policy. You will have an interesting time in your electorates on this issue. If my electorate is any guide, there is a lot of angst and anger and pain and hurt out there.

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