Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005 deal with a number of issues, some of which are not controversial, some of which are very much welcome and some of which, given some recent government amendments, raise deep concerns. The bills were first proposed following the London bombings. When they were introduced to this House, COAG had met and had made a number of statements concerning what I think amounted to a 10-point plan of different antiterrorism measures which the leaders of the governments around Australia, having received the best available intelligence, decided were all issues which the parliaments at state and federal level should enact.

One of those points was to move the time delay for citizenship from two years to three years. Time delay on citizenship is always going to be an issue of balance. There are two competing concerns, both of which matter. The first concern is that citizenship is a way of integrating people into our society, making sure that they do not feel estranged and that at every level they feel part of the Australian community. It is also something that, once confirmed, is a permanent decision that Australia has made and therefore something that we do not want to take lightly.

Having received the best available intelligence at a time of genuine international concern on security, the governments of Australia, including the one represented here and all the state and territory governments, agreed that one of the things that should happen was that the delay for citizenship should be moved from two years to three years. In that context, Labor announced that we would support that change. Two things have happened since then. More than a year passed since this bill went on the Notice Paper before the government bothered to find time to debate it. This is something that was held up in the context of the London bombings as being an important piece of legislation and as being relevant to our national security. It was so important to move the citizenship delay from two years to three years that we have waited more than a year to implement it. Anybody who only had two years of residence in Australia, at the time that we were told this was a national security issue, now has three years anyway. For anybody who was in the situation that the governments of Australia decided was worth pursuing, because of whom the governments thought that as a national security measure we had to go from a two-year delay to a three-year delay, we have delayed the bill anyway.

So, in the context of one of the most frightening international events that we saw in London last year, the government put it on the list. People were sceptical. Some people were sceptical as to whether or not this genuinely was a national security issue but, notwithstanding that, when all the governments of Australia agreed in that context—and it is a matter of balance—Labor was willing to support that bill. In that time, when the government said this was something that had to be done but could not be bothered doing it, 117,000 people have been granted citizenship. I do not know how many of those people would have been caught by the two-year to three-year change—I suspect the government does not know how many people would have been caught by the two-year to three-year change—but, notwithstanding that, it was something that we were told was significant to our national security, it was important enough to put in the 10-point plan and it was important enough to put in the list of things that need to be done; it just was not important enough to do.

Now, a year later, the government has put in an amendment to that bill. An amendment was brought into the House, as I understand it, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, who is sitting opposite, the member for Goldstein. That amendment says: ‘Let’s not go to three years; let’s go to four. Let’s make the change to the delay before somebody can become a citizen—a delay of four years.’ I would love to know how something that was a national security issue, where the government was determined to get the balance just right in a meeting of the leaders of all the governments in Australia, then finds itself being introduced to the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, with a change to that balance from three to four years, not on the advice of the best intelligence available to Australia, not on the advice of a COAG meeting of the leaders of all the governments of Australia, but because a parliamentary secretary reckons it is a good idea. I would love to know—and, curiously enough, none of this has been reported so far—exactly what intelligence briefings were made available to the parliamentary secretary to change part of that 10-point plan. I would love to know—and the parliamentary secretary has made none of these reasons available publicly—why it is that the premiers and the Prime Minister got it wrong a year ago or, if they got it right, whether there is now new intelligence that says the balance should be set somewhere differently.

Was the real reason this amendment was introduced to move it to four years that the government were frustrated that Labor had agreed to three years and they wanted to push that a little bit further until Labor said, ‘Hang on, we cannot support that’? If the latter is what the government are doing—and I suspect it is—then they got their win because we will not go beyond what was nationally agreed to as the right balance in a national security context. We will not agree to four years. If the plan was to get the Labor Party in a position where they were just pushing us too far, they got it. But make no mistake: the reason they had the agreement of three years, and the reason they will not get an agreement from this side of the House in delaying citizenship to four years, is that national security is too important. We are not going to have a situation where you get the most detailed briefing being given to the leaders of all the governments of Australia, where they agree as to where the balance should be struck, and then a parliamentary secretary wanders in and says, ‘Hey, I have a different idea; let’s whack it in.’

I have no doubt that the government has been planning these sorts of changes to a political end for some time. Just before the change was moved to three years, a citizenship ad campaign started to run very suddenly, with a tag-line which I cannot remember seeing previously. It might have been there previously, but I cannot remember seeing it. For years Australian governments of both sides of politics have tried to encourage people to become citizens, but the tag-line at the end of the TV ad changed and became ‘Australian citizenship: it’s never been easier.’ I mentioned to some people up in the press gallery at the time that there was no doubt that the government was about to try to make Australian citizenship harder to attain. That was the only reason to have that tag-line in the TV commercial.

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And you object to that?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sure enough, the change came, but it came in a context. I say to the member for Mitchell, when he asks if we object to that, it came in a context where we were willing to accept it and accept it absolutely. That was in the context of an agreement on national security. If the national security recommendation from all the governments of Australia after a national security briefing had been for four years, then I suspect we would be in a different situation to that which we are in today. But we are in a situation today where we had an agreement that three years was the right balance. That was promoted by the Prime Minister as part of our response to making sure Australia is safe following the London bombings.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why is it the right balance?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training at the table, ‘Why is it the right balance?’ I was not at that national security briefing—it was the premiers and the Prime Minister—but the person moving this amendment was not there either. On being provided with the best intelligence available, they said that was the right balance. There are times on national security issues when the people who have been given the expert briefings make a call and you look at it and, to the best extent that you are able to exercise your judgement, you go with the call that has been made in the face of the best intelligence. But the intelligence that has moved this amendment has had nothing to do with ASIO briefings, as far as I know, because I am sure that if it was to do with ASIO briefings they would have bothered to revisit the meeting with the premiers and the Prime Minister. I fail to believe—maybe I just have not worked out how this government operate—that even this government would reserve their most informed, high-security intelligence briefings for the parliamentary secretary who has responsibility for citizenship. I find it hard to believe that he would get the information but the premiers and the Prime Minister would not. I find that difficult to believe. If that is how it now operates, then that is a fascinating development in governance in this nation.

When Labor agreed for this bill to be passed off to the Main Committee, we did so in the context that it was noncontroversial, that we were in agreement with the government on these issues and that there were some minor amendments that we would be putting forward. We have a situation now where we will honour the agreement that we previously gave about it going to the Main Committee, but this agreement never would have been given had we known at the time that the government intended to abandon the information that had previously been agreed on nationally—and that is what we are faced with here.

There is much in this bill that is good, and that is why, even though I suspect we will lose in the vote as to whether or not it goes to four years, we will support the bill in its final form. One of the things is that we have a changing concept of how the residency requirements are viewed—and this was something that was discussed in estimates yesterday. Previously, determining length of stay in Australia for eligibility for citizenship would begin at the time you became a permanent resident. Given the number of people who find themselves on temporary visas but well and truly integrated into Australia, the government is now offering a higher level of flexibility in taking those periods into account. On the face of it, that appears to be a sensible move.

We also have some major changes which particularly affect the Maltese community. They are not specific and exclusive to the Maltese community, but there are statelessness issues that I know both the member for Gorton and the member for Prospect will be going into in some detail, where people of Maltese origin who renounced their Australian citizenship—where they were forced to under some previous situations that affect quite specifically this situation—were deemed to have retained their rights to Maltese citizenship rather than having acquired a foreign citizenship. In March 2005, the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee stated that Australian citizenship needed to be more inclusive and that children of people who renounce their citizenship under section 18 should also find themselves eligible for Australian citizenship. The government is going some way to fixing many of these problems. An amendment in detail has been circulated, I understand, which addresses the problem for some of the people caught by the situation affecting the Maltese community. Labor will be moving an amendment which I hope will be acceptable to the government. Labor will also move a second reading amendment, which I will do at the end of my remarks. The Maltese group are by far the largest to be affected by the section 18 rule, but there will also be some from other countries—for example, people from the United States have also found themselves to be affected.

A discussion paper has been put out by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs on a number of issues relating to citizenship. The discussion paper itself does not refer specifically to the four-year change. The four-year change is something that was heralded at the same time as the discussion paper went out, and I have no doubt that the shift to four years is being covered in many of the submissions that are being made following that discussion paper. Sadly, any of that level of consultation proves irrelevant, because the government were able to wait more than a year to implement COAG recommendations but they were not able to wait until the end of their own consultation period to determine whether or not to ignore the security advice and security determinations and go for the shift all the way to four years.

In the context of some of the issues in that discussion paper, a lot has been said about the English language and the importance of people learning it. I would find the government’s conviction on this far more credible if the Howard government had not slashed funds from its migrant English language program, which was revealed in estimates to be to the tune of $10.8 million. When you look at adult English services, which is a significant area for adult migrant English programs, you will find cuts to English language training at the same time as there are massive increases in the number of people seeking and requiring those programs, which makes the government’s commitment to English language seem far more tokenistic than I think people on each side of politics would wish.

From what is currently circulated, it appears that an earlier draft is no longer there. If it is no longer there, I am pleased. I saw an earlier draft of the second set of amendments, the transitional amendments concerning stateless people, but it does not appear to be the version that is now in the House. Given that the government has changed this legislation a number of times, I will refer to the draft now just in case it re-emerges after my speech. The government were intending to have a category of stateless people. The minister would not even have a discretion to allow an applicant to become an Australian citizen, depending on whether or not the applicant had been imprisoned for a period of time under the law of a foreign country. When I saw that amendment I thought it was one of the more extraordinary suggestions I had ever seen from the government. That is not a bad benchmark; there have been a few out there.

But to actually see the government, in amendments that appear to have been withdrawn, put forward that the law of another country and whether or not somebody had been imprisoned by another country would provide a bar on them ever receiving Australian citizenship is, I have to say, deeply offensive. If there is anything that the laws of other countries should not go near and not have any bar on it is Australian citizenship. If we do not own this one, what is the point? The government believes in outsourcing a whole lot of areas, but I do not reckon that we ought to outsource Australian citizenship to some of the worst regimes in the world. Yet we were to have a situation where somebody could have been imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, could come here and apply for Australian citizenship and, depending on the sentence Saddam Hussein had given them, find they were to be barred from Australian citizenship. As I say, that was in an earlier draft. I have asked the clerks for the latest draft circulated in the chamber, and I have been unable to find those sections. I have to say that I really hope those amendments are gone.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am surprised.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly hope that we do not see those provisions for stateless persons being introduced at any time. I do not want to see a situation where the law of another country has any bearing whatsoever on Australian citizenship.

We find ourselves supporting the bill. We are not going to be in a situation where we are going to say no to the Maltese community, which has been campaigning for a very long time for a better deal. We think the government can go one step better again and act favourably by supporting the amendment I have foreshadowed. I hope that the government will take that extra step. We believe Australian citizenship is extraordinarily important. We want to make sure we get the balance right and that Australian citizenship is valued for the important step that it is. Rather than seeing citizenship as something to unite, I do not want to see legislation such as this ever being used as some sort of political wedge. If the change to four years had come out of the COAG process, I may have been sceptical about it but Labor would have looked very seriously at whether or not, in the face of the best intelligence, it was a case of getting the balance right. That is where I believe the intelligence on the balance ought to come from. It ought to come from briefings from ASIO, not from briefings from Mark Textor.

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They’re not in this House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not sure whether the member for Mitchell was saying that ASIO is not in this House or that Mark Textor is not in this House. I suspect they are both here very regularly. ASIO is very welcome to provide briefings, information and the best intelligence available, and it should do so. When we get all the governments of Australia agreeing on a recommendation as to where the balance is right, departure from that is a big step and something you do not do lightly. You do not change the balance of national security arrangements simply because some polling or some political edges say it might be a clever thing to do. That is exactly what we are faced with with these amendments. That is why Labor will not support the amendment that changes the period from three years to four years. Eligibility rules and criteria for Australian citizenship are important issues which we argue for in this House.

I might say that Australia has not always been so tight on citizenship. We used not do it as well as we do it now. My seat, the seat of Watson, is named after somebody who was not a citizen. The third Prime Minister of Australia, while we know him in the official records as John Christian Watson, was actually Johan Christian Tanck. He gave a false identity. He was not a citizen of the empire, which you had to be in order to vote. Instead, he gave a false identity which allowed him to vote, to run for parliament and to become Prime Minister. Citizenship then was not done nearly as well as it is done now. While I am pleased that we did have the first Labor Prime Minister in the world, I am sorry that there was a fudging of citizenship at the time to do it. I might add that, had it not happened that way, because his father was German Mr Tanck would have been locked up during the First World War. We deal with citizenship very seriously these days, as we should. Citizenship is part of the essential fabric that makes our nation. It is part of the essential fabric that welcomes people. Those of us who regard this as being the best country in the world know that citizenship rules go with responsibilities and rights in being a part of that important and essential community. It is too important to play games with.

If there is an argument that the premiers and the Prime Minister got it wrong after the London bombings, I want to hear it. If there is an argument that updated security advice says that the 10-point plan that came out of COAG should be changed, I want it to be taken to COAG. What I do not want to see is an appalling display—as though there is a passionate difference between three years and four years and that is enough to abrogate what was clearly a decision taken in a national security context. I am pretty confident that I know where the briefings came from and I am pretty confident that you are more likely to find the director of Crosby Textor than you are to find a director of ASIO behind those briefings. That is not the way to deal with Australian citizenship. I want to see citizenship valued; I want to see it held up. I want to see it as something that people really take notice of. I do not want to see it used as a political game.

I suspect we could have avoided a political game if Labor had simply said that we were not going to support the change to three years. But once the government got a shock and thought, ‘Oh, they’re going to vote for it,’ what did they do? First, they waited. They waited more than 12 months to render the original change, which had been called for in a national security context, almost irrelevant. They said: ‘There have been bombings in London. These are the points that we need to change. Here’s one of them.’ It was not the most important one—I think we all agree with that—and it was not the most urgent one, but surely it was important enough to bother bringing the legislation on for debate. Yet the change from two to three years was so urgent, so important, that more than a year later it has not been voted on in either house of the Australian parliament. So then we get the change to four years. No context and no reasons were given. If the change from two to three years was important, the legislation should have been brought on immediately. Instead, when the government realised they did not have the political wedge that they were hoping for, they turned a blind eye to something that they had proclaimed as an important national security change.

I want to know from someone in the government why this legislation has been lying on the backburner for more than a year. Why go to all the trouble of getting the public servants to draft the legislation and put it together to fix some important problems affecting some communities in Australia and have an amendment which is also featured in our national security priorities to then say, ‘This legislation will be debated the week after next’? It has been listed for the week after next for more than a year. It does not get brought on for debate until the government comes up with an amendment that Labor will not support.

National security is too important; Australian citizenship is too important. The way that the government has handled this undermines the original reasons that were given for it to be introduced. The way that the government is now seeking to amend it undermines the justifications that were given. Labor will not support an amendment that devalues Australian citizenship. Labor will not support an amendment that ignores changes that were given and agreed to by the leaders of every government in this country in a very specific and particular context following the London bombings.

The government might think that it is fun to play games with those issues but we do not and will not. Had we known at the time we agreed to send the debate to the Main Committee instead of this chamber that this amendment was going to be there, we would have looked at it quite differently. Unlike the government’s attitude to COAG, we view an agreement as an agreement and therefore will continue to allow and not object to it going to the Main Committee. But the government should make no mistake: we oppose the change from three to four years. We will not see a national security agreement undermined because the former national secretary of the Liberal Party thinks there is a political edge in doing so. I hope that the final form of the bill is as it is now, with our amendment, and not in the form that the government proposes. I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)

opposes the increase in residence requirement to 4 years;

(2)

notes that the Government consulted with the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) on increasing the period from 2 to 3 years on national security grounds but undertook no consultation on the increase to 4 years and has given no adequate reason for this measure;

(3)

opposes the discriminatory treatment of people who lost their Australian citizenship under section 17 of the old Act (acquisition of citizenship of another country) and those who lost citizenship under section 18 (renouncing of citizenship) given that it fails to provide equitable treatment for a number of groups, but particularly the Maltese community; and

(4)

notes that a stateless person would be denied citizenship if convicted for an offence of greater than 5 years even if it were a trumped up conviction under a brutal and oppressive foreign regime”.

I would like to commend the bill in its full form to the House. It is not all bad; there is enough in there that we will make sure we support it in whatever its final form is, but I certainly hope its final form does the right thing by the Maltese community and that the bill in its final form does not undermine the national security agreements of last year.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the House today in support of the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005 and the Howard government’s commitment to bringing the 55-year-old Australian Citizenship Act into line with the reality of modern Australia. Australia is a nation enriched and strengthened by our cultural diversity, a result of successive waves of migrants to our shores. Since 1945, we have welcomed more than six million immigrants to help build the nation we enjoy today. I want to speak on this legislation because of the importance I place on citizenship. This is born out of my own life experiences and those migrant families that have had an influence on my own life.

What I see in the eyes of Vince Madafferi is the depth and breadth of more than four generations of the Italian-Australian tradition. I see oceans of respect for family traditions and for one another, especially for children. I see the love of a patriarch that transcends immediate family and generosity without bounds. I see eyes that mirror a love of country and the benefits his family has bestowed and received. His eyes betray the years of hard physical labour for goals set and met and a life fully lived, exposing the heart of his community and, in turn, soaking up all he surveys with simple, quiet and unsullied pride.

Yes, I see in the eyes of the father the future of the sons and their sons—the eyes of his father, Antonio Madafferi, who, with vision and bravado, launched his family on a new frontier: Australia, the great south land. I see in Vincent’s eyes good soil, rich and fertile, and the planting of a nation ready to flourish in our multicultural landscape. In his eyes I see my life too, moulded by the Venturas, the Todaros, the Adonis, the Di Pietros, the Bombacis, the Bucellos, the Lugistos and the Lamattinas to name a few, and, most recently, the Priscilla Ruffolos of this world, the Thomas Lammanas and the Joe Mirabellas. I see in Vince Madafferi’s eyes a world enriched for his being.

Attending the Italian Chamber of Commerce dinner on Friday, I saw the embodiment of a migrant success story that has been repeated across Australia. The industriousness of these groups is legendary. There was an Italian family that had a small vegetable patch in their yard behind our shop and it was the envy of the neighbourhood. My mother remarked jokingly, ‘If we’re not careful they will end up buying all of our farms in the district.’ So what happened? They eventually bought a farm. And then what happened? They bought the farm next door and the one next door to that. But far from posing a threat to our farming community, these industrious Italian families enriched it. As in other walks of life, they used the often basic skills they brought with them to grasp opportunities that we native-born Australians often failed to see or simply lacked the drive to take advantage of.

And these success stories extended beyond the Italian community, which was perhaps the most visible because of their numbers, particularly in my area. The opportunities offered by a welcoming Australia were embraced by all migrant groups at every level. Their success stories range from the most humble to the most exalted, from the small family businesses to the largest corporations in Australia, some of them now global operations. They include people like Frank Lowy, a native of the former Czechoslovakia, who came to Australia as a 12-year-old and now heads the Westfield property empire, and Polish born Richard Pratt, who came to Australia aged four and is now one of Australia’s leading businessmen and philanthropists.

But the achievement of migrant Australians is not limited to business. Sir Gustav Nossal achieved greatness as an immunologist at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne and was named Australian of the Year in 2000. The Victorian Governor, Professor David de Kretser, also had a distinguished career in medicine and research before his appointment earlier this year.

The one thing common to all of their stories is the way in which they embraced their Australian citizenship and made it central to their success while maintaining their links with their cultural heritage. It is the threads of these cultural ties, woven as they are into a vast tapestry, that make up the cosmopolitan community Australia has become. As our national anthem says in the second verse:

For those who’ve come across the seas We’ve boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To Advance Australia Fair.

As a people, we come from around 200 countries of origin. Yet, despite our linguistic, cultural and religious diversity, and with 22 per cent of us born overseas, we have worked hard to maintain our strong sense of national unity. As foreign conflicts divide the world, our community seems to have a renewed sense of common purpose, which brings us closer. One key to national unity is citizenship, a glue holding our culturally diverse society more closely together.

Successfully managing our diversity means emphasising the unity we have, and we do this through public citizenship ceremonies. As I move around my electorate of McMillan in Gippsland and attend these citizenship ceremonies, I am humbled by the enormous sense of pride and sense of belonging the candidates for citizenship display. The Australian citizenship pledge is about loyalty to Australia, its people and its democratic traditions; respect for each other’s rights and liberties; and a promise to uphold and obey our laws. It is about responsibilities as well as the benefits of belonging.

The Australian Citizenship Act 1948—originally titled the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948—was proclaimed to commence operation from 26 January 1949. The introduction of the 1948 act took place in the context of establishing Australian citizenship for the first time, while maintaining the status of ‘British subject’ for Australians. In the intervening 57 years the concepts of Australian nationality and citizenship have greatly evolved, and the 1948 act has been amended 36 times. The Citizenship Bill makes a sensible restructuring of the 1948 act in line with recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration in 1994, the Australian Citizenship Council in 2000 and the 2005 Senate committee inquiry into Australian expatriates.

Our diversity is one of our greatest strengths. The Australian government, the Howard government, is working with communities to harness this strength to the benefit of all. It is developing innovative policies and programs. This bill will provide a passage for the Australian Citizenship Act 2005 and Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2005 to be a part of that innovation. Australian Citizenship is the cornerstone of our society and the bond which unites us as a nation. Australian citizenship is the passport to membership of the Australian family.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and cognate legislation and also the amendment moved by the member for Watson. These are very important bills and amend a very important act, because this is a country of migrants. This country was developed and built by the blood, sweat and tears of migrants. It is fitting, then, that this chamber consider the way in which we should amend the laws to ensure that they are relevant to today. As the member for Watson indicated, we do support, in the main, the thrust of the bills—and did so more than 12 months ago, when we sought amendments to ensure that the law was relevant to today’s circumstances.

I listened to the member for McMillan. In the main, can I indicate that I support the sentiments that he made with respect to his own association with migrants and his reference to those successful migrants. But I think it is also important to note that not everyone is going to be a Lowy or a Pratt; they are not going to be very wealthy, successful migrants—but they will nonetheless be successful in their lives. As the member for McMillan indicated, he knows people, and certainly I know people, who are successful migrants—and I count my parents, who managed to find a place here for themselves, their children and their grandchildren. I therefore have some understanding of the importance of becoming a member of a very significant club: the Australian citizenry.

I have a number of concerns about the Australian Citizenship Bill, which have certainly been attended to in the member for Watson’s amendment. I associate myself with the comments made by the member for Watson when he questioned why the government has chosen to extend from two years to three years—and now to four years—the period of time a person must reside in Australia before they are eligible to become an Australian citizen. As the member for Watson indicated, the Australian Labor Party’s acceptance of the extension of the eligibility period for Australian citizenship had much to do with the national security discussions held at COAG, in which information provided by our intelligence agencies indicated that we have to consider, among other things, the way we admit people to our citizenry. But there has been no further explanation by the government, the minister or the parliamentary secretary as to why three years is no longer acceptable and people will now have to wait four years.

I can assure the government and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, who is now in the chamber, that this will affect community members in my electorate and, I am sure, in all electorates across the land. As the member for Watson made clear, the long time it can take to become a citizen creates tension for people who want to make this country their home. If we extend the eligibility period too far, it sends a message that we do not welcome people after a significant period of residence in this country. So that extra year is significant. While both sides of the chamber supported the move from two years to three years, to actually double the eligibility period from two years to four years seems to be an onerous requirement on the overwhelming majority of people who come to live here. Labor do not support the government’s view that the eligibility period should be further extended, nor have we heard any reason why we should support a further extension. This would seem to exclude and turn away too many people who have already made this country their home. I do not think it is a very good idea. I think the parliamentary secretary and the government should reconsider this proposition.

I would like to comment on the provision in the bill that would prevent the minister from approving a person becoming an Australian citizen if the person ‘has been convicted of an offence against an Australian or foreign law for which the person has been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least five years’. I do not think we should accept in all circumstances that a person’s having been convicted and sentenced for five years under a foreign law should prevent the minister from determining whether that person is eligible to become an Australian citizen. I can think of a number of examples where people who have been unfairly imprisoned by a sovereign state—not Australia but another country—would be caught by this provision. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for more than 20 years pursuant to a decision by a sovereign nation. I do not think we would not want Nelson Mandela to become an Australian citizen if he so wished. The government should consider the way in which this provision may prevent people who have been unfairly charged, convicted and imprisoned by certain states—because of the nature of the regime in that state—from becoming Australian citizens. I ask the government to reconsider that provision.

I have been waiting a very long time for this bill to be introduced into the parliament. Many of the proposed changes are well overdue and address inconsistencies in the law that really should have been fixed earlier. As I have indicated, there are still some problems with the bill. Hopefully, the government will accept the amendments that Labor has proposed, because they are sensible and fair and will only strengthen the bill. The most significant and urgent changes that this bill introduces are those relating to section 29, which deals with new provisions for resuming citizenship. The changes are significant because they end an anomaly whereby those who renounced their Australian citizenship in order to retain another citizenship were treated differently from those who renounced their Australian citizenship in order to acquire another citizenship.

The 2002 amendments to the act abolished the automatic loss of citizenship under section 17. Prior to these amendments, anyone who acquired the citizenship of another country automatically lost their Australian citizenship. This would typically apply to those Australians who moved to other countries, such as the United States, for the purposes of work and were required to take out citizenship of that country for their employment. Even if the other country permitted dual citizenship, under the 2002 act, pursuant to section 17, these people automatically lost their Australian citizenship. Section 23AA of the current act allows people in this situation to resume their citizenship provided that certain criteria exist regarding residency and character assessments. This contrasts with section 23AB of the act, which deals with those who renounced their citizenship in order to retain the citizenship of another country.

The single largest group of people affected by this law are the large number of Maltese Australians in our community. Many Maltese immigrants have come to Australia since the end of World War II. After many years of living in Australia, many returned to Malta with their Australian-born children. When these children reached 19 years of age, they were required, under Maltese law, to renounce their Australian citizenship in order to keep their Maltese citizenship. However, section 23AB requires that, apart from meeting similar criteria with regard to previous residency and to character, those who renounced their citizenship, in order to retain another citizenship, and wish to resume their citizenship must also be under the age of 25. Clearly, this is an anomaly.

There are currently two categories of Australian-born people wishing to resume their citizenship, with different rights. One group has its applications accepted, the other rejected. As the Malta Cross Group, in its submission to the Senate committee of inquiry into Australian expatriates, said:

It is indeed even more anomalous when you think that those Australian-born Citizens, undoubtedly of a more mature age, who freely chose to ‘acquire’ the citizenship of another country, can apply to resume their birth-right under Section 23AA but those Maltese who had no choice, cannot!

This anomaly was first brought to my attention when Steve and Lilian Schembri approached my office in December 2003, almost three years ago, seeking help. Steve was born in Melbourne in 1966 to Maltese immigrant parents. He was brought up in St Albans and spent his first 18 years there. He went to school at St Albans Tech and he barracks for the Western Bulldogs. In 1984, when he was 18, his parents decided to move back to Malta. At about the same time, his future wife, Lilian, who had been born and brought up in Australia, also moved back to Malta with her parents. Maltese law prior to 2000 required young people of Maltese descent to renounce their Australian citizenship between their 18th and 19th birthdays in order to retain their Maltese citizenship. Those failing to do so became ineligible for free tertiary education in Malta and were unable to hold certain jobs, access social security benefits or purchase property without approval.

In 2002, when Steve and Lilian decided that they wanted to return to Australia, Steve applied in Malta for a former resident migration visa (AR) at a cost of approximately $1,500 and waited 10 months for a response. Unfortunately, the application was rejected due to a condition that prevented former citizens from being granted this visa. Ironically, if Steve had not previously been an Australian citizen he would have been granted the visa. Steve, Lilian and their family of three children then came to Australia on visitor visas and applied for resumption of citizenship, only to discover that the under 25 years of age clause excluded them. In November 2003, Steve approached our office for assistance. In February 2004, Steve lodged his application for a general skilled migration visa, at a cost of $1,800. Whilst that was being processed, Steve was placed on a bridging visa which gave him no work rights and no access to Medicare or Centrelink.

Given the involvement that I have had with Steve, our office has been working to ensure that government policy is fixed so that this anomaly is fixed. Indeed, the policy that Labor took to the 2004 election would remove this anomaly. In March 2004, I submitted questions on notice to the then minister for citizenship, Gary Hardgrave, asking him why the law discriminated against those over 25 years of age. In May 2004, I addressed the House, pointing out the absurdity of denying citizenship to someone who was born and raised in Australia. In July 2004, Minister Hardgrave made a speech admitting that the government needed to fix this anomaly.

So in July 2004 the minister accepted that this anomaly was unfair—2½ years ago. In the meantime, people like the Schembris suffered. In November 2004, nine months after applying for a general skilled migration visa, Steve’s application was rejected because he did not meet the work experience requirements of ‘12 months work in the past 18 months’. Steve had been a plasterer since July 1988, but he did not qualify for the visa because he had been waiting in Australia since 2003 without working—because he was not allowed to work!

Steve got a fair bit of publicity over his plight, with the Herald Sun editorial of 10 November 2004 describing the plight of the Schembri family as ‘an example of appalling bureaucratic inflexibility and legislative absurdity’. It called on Immigration Minister Vanstone to:

... treat the Schembri affair for what it is—arrant nonsense. The family must be allowed to stay.

In November 2004, I asked the new minister, Mr McGauran, whether the government intended to honour the commitment made by the previous minister. In March 2005, I once again raised the issue in the House and asked the minister when the changes were anticipated. Finally, in April last year Steve Schembri was granted a sponsored skilled migration visa, allowing him to work. However, he does not get access to Medicare and is required to pay in excess of $300 per month in private health insurance. In June 2005, I asked the minister again when the government intended to put a bill before parliament.

The 2½-year delay to get to this point has been very disappointing. It took until November 2005 before the government could draft a bill to present to parliament and then a staggering 11 months between the introduction of the bill and the current debate. This is appalling. Work Choices legislation is rammed through this chamber without allowing members to even debate the merits of the legislation. But if it is a bill whose substantive provisions have in the main unanimous support across the chamber, the government cannot even get the bill into the chamber for debate and to have the bill enacted.

That shows you the failure of this government. The fact that it is out of touch with people who are hurting and the fact that it is not even able to cope with the ordinary business of legislation shows you how this government is failing people like Steve and Lilian Schembri. I am not surprised that the Herald Sun chose to write so strongly in opposition to the government’s inaction with respect to this matter. The passage of this bill cannot happen quickly enough for the Schembris, for the hundreds of other Maltese Australians in similar circumstances and for the many others still in Malta and unable to come here because they are in the same position as the Schembris.

While we are happy that the government with this bill has chosen to remove the anomaly that exists between those who renounced their citizenship in order to acquire and those who renounced in order to obtain—that is, sections 17 and 18—the government has stopped short of removing all anomalies by treating the children of these two categories differently. While children born before their parents renounced their Australian citizenship will be entitled to resume citizenship once again, there is no provision in the bill for those born after. It is not difficult to see the potential difficulties this will cause in situations where some children qualify for resumption of citizenship while their siblings do not. Steve and Lilian Schembri have three children, aged seven, 13 and 15. All three were born in Malta after Steve and Lilian had renounced their citizenship. The children currently attend the local school in Kings Park in my electorate. Under this bill they do not automatically become citizens at the same time as their parents do. They will have to apply for citizenship outside of policy guidelines, which is discretionary rather than automatic. That is why Labor has proposed the amendment.

So I do implore the government and, in particular, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to ensure that the anomaly that has been remedied by the bill does not continue to affect the children. I am not suggesting that they cannot ultimately become citizens, but it seems to me a little strange that parents can become citizens automatically after this bill is enacted but their children cannot. I therefore ask the government to consider the proposed amendment by Labor in all respects but, indeed, for the people I know, the Schembri family and families like them, and for the children who have been left out of the proposals that are incorporated in this bill.

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party’s record in citizenship, as in migration, is absolutely appalling. If any group in Australia deserves condemnation for the way in which they have used both immigration and citizenship laws to play political games and to favour certain groups of people, it would have to be the Australian Labor Party. In 1984 the Australian Citizenship Act was destroyed by the Australian Labor Party taking out all substance of commitment to Australia.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You may laugh and giggle, but the results of what is happening in Australia today can be sheeted back to the lack of commitment to this nation and to what citizenship stands for by the Australian Labor Party. Following the reduction in 1986 of the commitment in the oath, the reduction in time available to people to understand our nation—to fully understand the character of Australians before making that final step of citizenship and to understand all those processes—people have the right, under the Australian Labor Party’s proposals, to claim citizenship, though it is not fully understood, not fully expressed at citizenship ceremonies and not fully explained to them. So we are reaping the results of that problem today across Australia. Cronulla was not an accident; Cronulla was a process whereby a group of people failed to understand their commitment and responsibilities and the privileges of being Australian. It is time to resolve those problems, to fix them up and to establish a proper appreciation in the Australian people and in those who want to come here of what it is to be an Aussie.

The Australian people can give no more important or significant gift to somebody coming here than the gift of citizenship. We give them absolute and complete rights. It is true that many of the privileges of citizenship can be gained by permanent residency, but that is a permission only; it is not a right. Citizenship imposes rights and provides privileges to people which cannot be taken away except in the most extreme circumstances. Permanent residency only grants permission, and that can be removed at any time.

I have looked at the character, the identity and the political and legal status of Australians, and they are unique, because our character is one of inclusiveness and fairness. We talk about Australian values, which I believe are different from those of any other nation on earth. They are values which form the Australian character and which are something Australians hold dear. If there are people invited to this land who do not want to accept those characteristics that make up the Australian character, then most Aussies would feel they need to find some place other than Australia in which to live. Our inheritance, our character, our history, the fact that we can support the underdog, the fact that we can take on incredible challenges and come through, and the fact that we can punch above our weight in a range of medical, scientific, arts, sporting, business and other endeavours is part of the Australian identity. But there is a political and legal status granted to a citizen which I explained briefly when I mentioned the rights of citizenship.

The rights of citizenship I will discuss shortly. But I would like to read to the House the understanding of citizenship as outlined to me by a dear friend—a Maltese friend, it so happens—Lawrence Dimech AM, a former consul general for Malta, a former member of the Labour Party in Malta, and a man committed completely to this nation. He wrote initially concerning the Maltese problem, which the government has basically resolved; there may be some other issues the government wants to give attention to. Lawrence Dimech writes in this manner:

We are glad that we have been asked again to submit our views about the Australian Citizenship Bill. We feel passionate about matters relating to citizenship. They tend to shape the future of our lives and create a strong bond with the nation of Australia, now our [country], our place of abode.

He goes on:

We do agree with the increase but the emphasis should be more on commitment to Australian laws and traditions than residential qualifications.

Applicants should be examined thoroughly regarding their work ethics, observation of the laws, contribution to the general community, their efforts to learn English and whether they have established real and permanent roots in this country.

From personal experience we observe that some permanent residents make the transition in less than three years but others take ... much longer. Permanent residency gives the new comer most of the benefits in this country but Australian citizenship should not be given as easily as it has been done in the past.

So writes Lawrence Dimech. He goes on:

Then, once Australian citizenship is given, it should only be taken away in exceptional circumstances.

And I think most Australians would say yes to that—except the Australian Labor Party. They had the most demeaned and meaningless commitment of any nation on earth. You could run through the oaths and the allegiances required of citizens of every nation on earth and the weakest of the lot was the Australian commitment. It meant nothing. It meant that people could come here and say, ‘Yes, I agree with everything you say,’ whether or not they understood what was being said, whether or not they knew the oath they were making, whether or not they knew the commitment they were taking on, or understood it, or could even reply in English; and they became, automatically, Australian citizens after two years. The shortest time and the least meaningful oath of any nation on earth—that is the record of the Australian Labor Party.

Now we are proposing changes, I believe, to restore a pride in and a commitment to and understanding of what this Australian nation is about, and I am extremely pleased that it is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs who has seen the necessity of making these changes. I want to compliment him personally on it, because it is a step forward in the way in which our current generation of people understand Australia and want it to exist, and it is the aspirational statement of those who want to come here who want to stay here.

Let me give some of the common values: the importance of our families and our homes—these are significant in Australia; let us not give that away by a weak commitment to Australia—the individual freedoms and liberties that we have, and the values which unify us and provide a sense of purpose for individual endeavour. All of these things enrich our culture and provide us with the impetus to perform and to make the achievements that we have been so successful in making.

I refer briefly to the oath because we have had in Sydney circumstances to do with Sheikh Taj al-Din al- Hilali, whom I do not know; he became an Australian citizen. And this is another criticism of the Australian Labor Party, though none of them will talk about it of course: it was they and they alone who did this. The former member for Watson and before that Grayndler, to stack his branches, wanted a whole group of Arabic-speakers to join those branches, and he got them in. And the key person to do it—an illegal migrant at the time—was Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali. That is what the Australian Labor Party did with Australian citizenship: played games with permanent residency and citizenship. And Paul Keating, bless his socks, when Bob Hawke was out of the country and he was Acting Prime Minister, ticked the box and created permanent residency first of all and then citizenship for Hilaly.

Did that man—who does not speak English now, to the media—understand what he was doing when he took the oath? I believe he has transgressed the weak oath that we have at the moment. I would like to see that oath strengthened, because really that is the legal commitment to the nation. The oath is the culmination of a process of learning about language, understanding the law and the processes, committing yourself to the culture of our nation, committing yourself to the future direction of this nation, and then encapsulating all of those understandings and that comprehension into an oath of commitment.

I believe that that oath of commitment must contain something, as does the American oath and most other oaths that people take—a commitment to renounce those things that would demean and diminish Australia. Until Chris Hurford found that it did not mean a great deal and that it was irrelevant, that renunciation clause used to be in the Australian oath of allegiance. That is the legal link which you can cite to a person who transgresses our understanding of what it is to be an Aussie; that is the link to point out to them: ‘You have transgressed your oath. You need to reform or you need to leave.’ I believe that that link is a legal commitment made by an individual, who should say their own name at the time of accepting citizenship, and that that legal link needs to be enforced.

The American situation is extremely interesting, and the Canadian oath and the oath of Great Britain are interesting. They all require greater commitment than the Australian oath. The Americans say:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen ...

So, whilst they recognise the prospect of dual citizenship, the commitment is to where they are, in the United States, and that is what I think Australians want. They do not mind about cultural practice. They do not mind about people’s history or past. They do not mind about their friends and what they do, basically, but they want their primary commitment to be to Australia first of all. And so the citizenship bill that we are debating today I think is a significant change and a worthwhile change.

I would like to conclude my remarks by drawing attention to the inquiry that is currently being undertaken by the parliamentary secretary. There are some interesting things that people ought to comment about—not just migrant groups. This is an issue for all Australians. It does not matter whether it is the CWA, the RSL, a local church group, the Progress Association—everybody should have an interest in what it is to be an Aussie, and they ought to have a say on it. It is not a matter that should be captive to activists in the ethnic communities. This inquiry is about: should Australia introduce a formal citizenship test? Most countries have one. You have to sit down and answer a few questions about the country you are going to become a member of before you get citizenship. You must be able to answer them correctly.

The booklet distributed by the parliamentary secretary outlines some of those tests. How important is knowledge of Australia for Australian citizenship? Again, that is part of the process of joining most countries. What level of English is required to participate as an Australian citizen? That is very important: you do not get a job if you cannot speak English. That is the fact of the matter. How are you going to support a family, maybe your olds, your kids, if you cannot speak English? It is a critical factor. It is the key. You do not read street directories. You do not know where to shop. You do not know how to get around. It is a very important component.

I believe there has been some talk of people having English lessons available to them while they are waiting for final approval. Nothing could be better. You could do it electronically. There are 101 different ways in which effective lessons can be given to people before they come here. It would be a great start for them. We talk about the need for skills in Australia. Some of the greatest skills come from countries where people do not speak English, like Holland, Germany and places like that. People think, ‘The whole of Asia will come for skills.’ That is not the case. We look to different parts of the world for different skills. It so happens that some of the best tradesmen and skilled engineers are in Europe. We look to America for other things. It is a fact of nature that financiers and key businesspeople may come from Asia.

Understanding English is very important. How important is it to demonstrate a commitment to Australia’s way of life and values for those intending to settle permanently in Australia or spend a significant period of time in Australia? That says it all. I hope that inquiry will modify the way in which we look at citizenship and the provision of those government programs and efforts that support citizenship in the future. I commend the bill to the House. I condemn completely the activities of the Australian Labor Party in this area as being against Australia’s interest in every area.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 represents a significant rewrite of the Citizenship Act 1948. It was first introduced into the House 12 months ago. It has been listed for debate a number of times, and each time the government has withdrawn it as the time came to debate the bill. So it is good to see that it has finally come into the House for a proper debate.

I firstly would like to deal with the changes to the residency requirement encompassed by the bill. As originally constituted, this bill would have changed the residency requirement for Australian citizenship from two out of the last five years to three out of the last five years. The government told us that this was necessary for two reasons: firstly, to ensure that permanent residents seeking citizenship had better experience of Australian life and its rights and obligations before taking the important step to become a citizen; and, secondly—and perhaps more importantly—to allow more time to identify people who might be a security risk.

The government took that to COAG. The premiers were convinced. We indicated that the reasons presented by the government in times of heightened national security would lead us to support it—and then the government did nothing. They let the bill sit on the shelf; they did not bring it into the chamber for debate but let it rot. This was meant to be an important initiative for national security, but the government left it there. For 12 months we have debated all sorts of other legislation, and the government have chosen not to bring this on for debate.

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They did nothing.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They have done nothing about it. They said it was urgent. They rushed it to COAG. They rushed out press conferences and releases--—and then sat on the side and did nothing.

Now the government comes back and says, ‘Although we’ve done nothing for the last 12 months, we now want to make it even tougher.’ Now the government has amended its own legislation to increase the residency requirement to four out of the last five years. It has presented very slim reasons, and, in fact, no new reasons for this increase—no national security case; no case based on well-thought-out measures to improve the value of citizenship—but simply increased the period from three years to four years. That is something which cannot be supported.

There is a broad consensus in this House and in the community that we need to do more to ensure that people know what they are signing up for when they become Australian citizens, that they sign up for a clear set of values and a clear set of obligations and, of course, that English is highly desirable for anyone seeking to become an Australian citizen. But this continual attempt by the government to extend the residency requirement is not a sustainable way to achieve that. They have not presented reasons and, by approaching this matter in an ad hoc way and simply adding on another year, they attack the sustainability of what they are trying to do with the broad support of the opposition.

I am glad that the government has seen sense and is no longer attempting to introduce these changes retrospectively. The Labor Party put the view very strongly that we would support the increase to three years but that this should not be applied retrospectively, which would have been quite unfair. It should only apply to new arrivals in Australia and, as I understand it, the government has accepted that. Imagine the situation of people who had been looking forward to getting Australian citizenship, had been told what the requirements were, had filled out the forms and had been patiently waiting for the day to come, only to have the goalposts moved and to be told, ‘Sorry, you did meet the residency requirements but now we’ve changed them.’

It is worth remembering the context in which we advertise, encouraging Australian residents to become citizens. We spend government money asking people to take the pledge—and I do not have a quarrel with that; it is an appropriate use of government advertising, unlike most of the other advertising we see from this government—but we cannot advertise and encourage people to take out citizenship if we then change the goalposts on them.

Before I became a member of the House I had the privilege of serving as mayor of my city. One of the obligations that goes with that position is the swearing in of new citizens, which I did on behalf of the former Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, who is in the chamber. When I was mayor I swore in probably 1,000 Australian permanent residents as Australian citizens on his behalf. He would agree with me that there are few greater thrills in public office than to see the look on somebody’s face when they take Australian citizenship. It means a lot and it is not to be taken lightly. And to change the goalposts and to say, retrospectively: ‘We are now no longer going to let you be a citizen. We know we told you that you had to be here for only two years, but now you have to be here for three or four years,’ would be most unfair. I am glad that the government has taken on board the Labor Party’s criticism.

I would like to spend most of my time talking about proposed section 21 of the bill. By way of background, under the old section 17 of the act, until 2002 Australia was one of those countries throughout the world that stipulated that you lost your Australian citizenship if you acquired the citizenship of another nation. This was grounded in the old way of doing things—the philosophy that it was somehow disloyal to Australia to also adopt the nationality of another country. Of course, forcing people to choose between Australian citizenship and that of another nation was always a false choice and cut Australia off from a source of talent and the loyalty of a large group of people. Some of the elements of this old way of thinking are still evidenced in this bill, as amended by the government.

The old section 18 of the act said that an individual who had citizenship of another country could formally renounce their Australian citizenship. The most prominent and obvious example was in the case of Maltese Australians. Of course, many thousands of Maltese citizens emigrated to Australia after World War II and, outside Malta, there are more Maltese in Australia than in any other country. When these immigrants had children in Australia they of course became Australian citizens and, under Maltese law, they were Maltese citizens by descent. In some cases the original Maltese immigrants returned to Malta and took their children, Australian citizens, with them. When these people returned they of course retained their Australian citizenship.

But the problem arose under the former Maltese law, whereby those children between their 18th and 19th birthdays had to choose which citizenship to retain. If these individuals did not renounce their Australian citizenship by the time of their 19th birthday they lost their Maltese citizenship. This was an invidious choice for these individuals but, at the end of the day, many of them had no choice. Children who were living with their parents in Malta, many of them undertaking further education, had no choice but to renounce their Australian citizenship, as difficult as that was for them. If they did not renounce their Australian citizenship they would not have been able to continue their studies, they would not have been able to work for the Maltese government and they would not have been able to buy property in Malta. So it is unfortunate that the Maltese government at that point imposed that choice on Australian citizens in Malta. Thankfully, in 2000 Malta changed that policy and they now accept dual citizenship, as do most nations around the world.

The difficulty arises now because those people who renounced their Australian citizenship have had their own children. Under this bill, the child of a person who forfeited their Australian citizenship under section 17 of the former act is able to reclaim their Australian citizenship. And that is a good thing—we welcome it. But the child of a person who was forced to renounce their citizenship under section 18 is not able to do so. This is a false dichotomy, an artificial distinction, and it is one the government should rectify and it is one that they are refusing to rectify. It is also unfair to between 2,000 and 3,000 children who are living in Malta.

The government mounts the case that people who took citizenship of another country, and who therefore lost their Australian citizenship, often did not know the implications of what they were doing, whereas the people who formally renounced their citizenship did know the implications of their actions. As I say, it is a false distinction. Many of the people who took other citizenship and therefore automatically lost their Australian citizenship did know the implications of their actions. That is not to say that it made their decision any easier. It is not to say that it was not a wrench for them, but they did know the implications of their actions, just as Maltese citizens who renounced their citizenship, under section 18 of the old act, also knew the ramifications of their actions. It does not reflect what the government said that they would do. In his address to the Sydney Institute on 7 July 2004, the former Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, the member for Moreton, said:

… the Australian Government has reconsidered this issue and decided that the principles underlying the resumption provisions should apply equally, regardless of whether the purpose of renunciation was to acquire or retain another citizenship and regardless of a person’s age. The Government will amend the act accordingly and include a requirement that the person be of good character.

But the bill that we see in the House today does not reflect that undertaking given by the member for Moreton to the Sydney Institute in July 2004. The government have, frankly, squibbed on their undertaking to Maltese Australians and reneged on their undertaking to the thousands of good Australian citizens who had to renounce their Australian citizenship under Maltese law. The government should rectify that and they should abide by the undertaking that was given by the member for Moreton in 2004.

It also does not reflect the recommendation of the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional References Committee, which strongly recommended that the children of people who renounced their citizenship under section 18 of the act should be treated the same way as people who forfeited their citizenship under section 17. It was a unanimous recommendation and the government should accept it. Importantly, the failure to deal with this issue in an inclusive way also reflects the old way of thinking.

It is of course true that Australian citizenship is a privilege which needs to be guarded closely, but it is equally true that as a nation Australia has not adequately valued the benefits that come to us from our diaspora. As a nation we have not fully capitalised on the potential of the large number of Australians who live overseas but who still regard Australia as home. On any given day, there are up to one million Australian citizens who live overseas. They still regard Australia as home and they are still happy to help our country.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.