Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the proudest moments for every member of parliament—in fact, we're very fortunate to be able to do it on multiple occasions—is attending a citizenship ceremony. I attend citizenship ceremonies regularly in the City of Bayside and the City of Glen Eira, and I get to see the bright, shining, beaming faces and the excitement and enthusiasm of the people who have decided not just to make Australia home, but to make a commitment to our great country. The mayors turn up in their full regalia. They have their mayoral bling, as I call it, which always makes them far more attractive in photographs with new citizens than us lowly members of the House of Representatives! When administering that oath, they share the pride, the hope and the ambition of new Australian citizens and what they will contribute to our great nation.

Part of the joy of being a member of parliament is to go to those ceremonies and be a participant. In fact, it's an honour and a privilege. It goes to the heart of the privilege of citizenship itself. I always give a speech about the history and traditions of our great country and how, over thousands of years, our journey from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders through to European settlement and the ongoing migration waves continue to enhance and strengthen our nation. There are the stories and individual histories that we bring to this country, including my own, with its diversity, and everybody else's. The story of our great country is being written by today's generation and will continue to be written by future generations—about the incredible achievements of our great country as part of an ongoing and enduring story of freedom, responsibility and the pursuit of justice for everybody, and, in our perfect country, towards a more perfect outcome and journey. That's the power and privilege of citizenship. That's what this government understands and why we treat it with such sanctity, such respect, and such hope. It's about the ambitions of the future citizens of our country. That's why citizenship is at the core of how we see ourselves as a government.

It's important that we make sure that there's integrity in the citizenship process and that everybody who wants to become a citizen is able to do so with the full confidence of the Australian people. We need to make sure that it's a fair and appropriate process and that everybody meets the criteria—and that, as part of that process, they make a commitment to our great nation and its future success as part of celebrating the traditions of freedom and responsibility. Of course it's also about recognising the full potential of every person who shares the ambition and values of our great nation and wants to become a citizen. That's why this government has invested $9 million in systems and staff, including establishing a task force to focus on complex cases and remove the barriers and gaps for many people seeking citizenship while maintaining the integrity of the system so that Australians have confidence in it.

The government has put an incredible amount of effort into doing this. There was a coordinated range of improvements to the entire citizenship processing pipeline during the past financial year—the recruitment of more staff to increase application processing times; improvements in staff training and the revision of policy and procedures to assist staff to be able to do so; the establishment of multidisciplinary task forces to address some of the most complex identity cohorts; the introduction of ambitious internal targets to achieve milestones; an increase in the number of citizenship appointments available for applicant interviews and testing; and encouraging online lodgement for easy applications to promote processing efficiencies. These are administrative processes that go to the heart of what we've been able to achieve. We have seen an 80 per cent increase in the number of citizenship by conferral applications approved. We've seen a 62 per cent decrease in invalid outcomes which have been much quicker to process so that those people who are denied a pathway to citizenship can correct if appropriate. We've seen more than 145,000 new Australians have their citizenship by conferral applications approved in the last financial year—up from 81,000 in 2017-18.

At every point this government has done what is appropriate to preserve the integrity of our citizenship application process. This government has done everything it should to make sure that there are pathways for those people who wish to be new Australians to reach their potential as citizens. And we see that on the faces—the smiles, the joy and in the eyes—of new citizens when they're sworn in at those citizenship ceremonies.

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