Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

     (a) that Australian citizenship is precious and the community must have confidence that the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 is administered fairly, impartially and with integrity;

     (b) that the law provides that Australian citizenship by conferral is available to everyone who meets the legislated criteria, regardless of visa class; and

     (c) the enormous, inexplicable and unconscionable delays by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in processing thousands of citizenship applications;

(2) acknowledges the devastating impact of delays and uncertainty on affected people, whose lives are in limbo, whose mental health is suffering, who are often unable to travel and who have been separated from their family for many years;

(3) notes the Federal Court of Australia in BMF v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] case which:

     (a) found that there had been unreasonable delays in the department’s processing of citizenship applications of two men on protection visas who had been waiting 18 months and 23 months, respectively;

     (b) received evidence from the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection that more than 10,000 applications requiring ‘further assessment’ were outstanding as of July 2016, yet only 12 officers in the department were even trained to assess these applications; and

     (c) noted that the evidence provided suggested that something beyond resourcing of the citizenship program had caused very significant delays, and that the possibility of applications being ordered by reference to an ‘unreasonable rationale’ could not be excluded; and

(4) calls on the Government to:

     (a) admit to and apologise for these delays;

     (b) take immediate action to process the full backlog of citizenship applications this year; and

     (c) publicly assure affected people and the wider community that the citizenship function will be administered fairly, impartially and expeditiously in the future.

This motion regarding the growing and unacceptable delays in processing citizenship applications has been moved because it is an enormous issue in my electorate. There are many cases. Since I was elected I have heard from new people every week and, indeed, some weeks, every single day. Bruce is a very multicultural area, with people from everywhere, and I firmly believe that we as MPs have a responsibility to represent everyone in our community—not just the voters, not just the people on the electoral roll, but also young people and permanent residents who are part of the community.

I have written numerous letters to the minister on this issue and have received unsatisfactory responses with no explanation. So in recent months I have spoken to colleagues and I have realised that what I was seeing locally is just the tip of the iceberg with what we are seeing across Australia. Finally, in December 2016, the Federal Court of Australia exposed the scale of this issue: over 10,000 complex cases with no clear rationale for the delays, and they admitted that there were only 12 people in the department who had been trained to assess these cases. This motion calls on the government to apologise, to clear the backlog and to fix the mess.

Australian citizenship is precious. Formal membership of the Australian community brings rights and obligations and the whole community must have full confidence in how cases are considered and how citizenship is granted. Central to this is the concept of integrity: integrity in applying the law—Australia has a rule of law, and the government is not above it; integrity in who gets citizenship; and integrity in administration. The process must be effective, efficient and free from politics. What we are seeing fails these tests. But it is not just an administrative issue; it is also a human issue. These are not just 10,000 cases; every single case is a person with a human story and a family. Distraught, upset and frustrated people flood my office because nothing has happened with their application for months or years and years and years. I see the pain of grown men at my front counter and in my office sobbing, breaking down and telling me about their suicide counselling and the mental health impacts of knowing that they cannot visit their dying parents and cannot see their families that they have been separated from for five, six, seven, eight or more years—and we have DIBP: 'Don't call us, we'll call you,' with no answers and no time lines.

Across the country a pattern seems to have emerged of certain classes of people being targeted, such as those on protection visas. The Liberal government denies that there is a deliberate policy, but the evidence indicates that there is a systemic problem. These are not isolated cases. This is consistent with this minister's pattern of seeking more power now through the visa revalidation bill to attack certain classes of people. Instead of the minister polishing his head in his office and counting the numbers for the leadership, he should do his job with his department and process these cases.

Ensuring new migrants settle here in our society—on which we have a proud record—is critical, but stalling their citizenship application for years, for people who live here and work and pay taxes, is unbearably cruel. They cannot move on with their lives. I have spoken before about the public meeting that I held in my electorate with the member for Isaacs, where we had over 400 people who had the courage to speak up in a public forum about their cases. They are not just workers; we have also heard from students who cannot complete their degrees because they cannot get a passport to travel overseas to do the international units—for example, masters students studying civil engineering. There is no explanation and no care from the minister or the department.

As with the Federal Court case, what the law says is that if someone meets the requirements to have citizenship conferred then they should be processed. The requirements in the act are quite simple and they are quite clear. It does not matter where people are from or how they arrived here; the minister must follow the law. Of course some cases are difficult because of identification. Of course some cases are difficult if there are national security issues. That is not at issue. But those things alone do not explain the delays that we are seeing.

Until last week, the general target had been 80 per cent in 80 days. Mysteriously, the minister changed the standards with the department last week, and he is now saying that, from 14 March, it will be 75 per cent in 10 months and 90 per cent in 12 months. He just slipped that one on the website. That does not help the thousands of cases that have been sitting in the bottom drawer for two or three years. The Federal Court case that I referred to is very clear. There is no time line in the act, but the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act applies, and ministers cannot unreasonably delay decisions. The evidence in the court case suggests that 'something beyond the resourcing or the restructuring of the citizenship program caused these significant delays.' It is not acceptable that two people went to court and got priority. Everyone should be confident that they are assessed fairly in a fair queue, and I quote from the court:

The fact that an applicant who institutes court proceedings is given priority suggests an arbitrariness which does not engender confidence that a reasonable allocation mechanism was being applied.

The government should fix this—or Labor, when we form government, will.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am enormously proud to be an Australian. There is nothing Australians cannot do, and our opportunities are only limited by our imagination. Our country brings together the best elements from around the world. We have built a nation where Australians, no matter where they were born, can strive, succeed and provide a future for their families. As Noel Pearson has observed, Australia is a country with 'an Indigenous heritage, a British foundation and a multicultural character.' Carved out of the harsh Australian environment, together we have built the most successful multicultural nation on earth. This is a massive achievement, and one that is rightly celebrated as a centrepiece of our nation.

More than one in four Australians are born overseas. Migrants have made a huge contribution to this country, one which we rightly take pride in celebrating. It is a remarkable step to take to live your life in a new country. I congratulate the Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Services, the assistant minister for human services and the chairman of Australian Multicultural Council, Dr Sev Ozdowski AM, on today's launch of Australia's multicultural statement, an important statement of the shared values and understanding that bind Australians together.

I hold very strong views on the value of Australian citizenship. When you undertake the process of obtaining citizenship you are doing an enormously serious thing. You pledge yourself and give your word—many before God—to a new country and a new home. We should never take giving a pledge or an oath lightly. New citizens commit an act of dedication to this country in peacetime in the most solemn way we can.

Some of those who come to our shores have seen horrendous things in other parts of the world and understand, more than most, the beauty of our freedom. By becoming citizens they are committing themselves to Australia's core values—values of respect for the law, for individual freedom and for the Australian way of life, the values of hard work and a fair go, the values of parliamentary democracy, freedom of thought, speech, association and religion. We do not ask that new citizens renounce their heritage, but we have every right to demand that they believe in Australian values and the Australian way of life.

In 1949, during the first year of the Nationality and Citizenship Act, Australian citizenship was granted to 2,493 people of more than 35 different nationalities. Since then more than five million people have become Australian citizens. Australia's citizenship legislation has been amended over 30 times. Important changes were introduced by John Howard, who tightened national security measures and increased the requirement that applicants be residents from two years to four, including 12 months of permanent residency immediately preceding their application.

John Howard also introduced requirements for applicants to have adequate knowledge of our country and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship, encouraging successful integration into our society. The citizenship test also ensures applicants have a basic knowledge of the English language. With more than half a million Australian residents unable to speak English, this is critical to ensuring new citizens can play an active role in Australian society and take full advantage of the opportunities Australia has to offer.

The Rudd government altered the Australian citizenship test by focusing questions on knowledge relevant to the pledge of commitment rather than on broader general knowledge of Australian history and culture. I think new citizens should not only know the nature of the pledge they are making; they should know something of our history and culture too.

But our broader challenge is not testing a series of facts but testing the cast of mind and the commitment to Australian values of new citizens. Australian citizenship is a privilege and should be treated accordingly. It should be reserved for migrants wanting to be full and active participants in our society. Applicants for citizenship must therefore be more knowledgeable about Australia than many of us who were born here.

So how do we properly test that individuals have understood our culture and are committed to it? How can we best equip people with the knowledge and skills to make the best opportunity that Australian citizenship presents? Australia needs more people who appreciate and want to preserve our democratic freedoms and who strive to create opportunities for their family, their community and our broader nation. We should focus on people's ability to integrate into Australian society, to learn English, to educate their children and to seek employment opportunities to prevent welfare dependence.

An ideal citizenship application could cover applicants' links to the community, work history, community service and a commitment to fundamental Australian democratic values. It could require references to be provided by existing Australian citizens with whom they have engaged through work, sport, volunteering or community activities. All these ideas deserve further consideration. None of this is meant to be a discouragement, but nothing in life that is worthwhile comes easy. We want people to love our country, to be loyal, to contribute to it and to make it a better place, and our citizenship requirements should reflect this.

Sir Robert Menzies remarked at the opening of the Citizenship Convention in 1958:

We’re doing far more than receiving people from other countries. We’re doing far more than finding them employment ... We are in this way—and never let us forget it—building a nation.

This is the greatest exercise in nation-building for Australia this century has seen. We should heed Menzies' words and retain Australian citizenship as the prize that it is.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Article 34 of the Refugee Convention states:

The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of—

refugees—

They shall in particular make every effort to expedite naturalization proceedings and to reduce as far as possible the charges and costs of such proceedings.

According to its recently updated website—updated since the Federal Court determined, as early as last week, that delays in citizenship processing were unreasonable—the Department of Immigration and Border Protection claims to process the majority of citizenship applications within 10 to 12 months. However, according to a report by the Refugee Council of Australia that involved interviews and surveys of 188 people, the average waiting time is not 10 to 12 months or 80 days, as previously stated; it is 215 days for those who have completed their the citizenship test and 357 days from the time of their application. The three longest waiting times have been 603, 623 and 682 days.

The evidence collected in this report suggests that the delays are disproportionately affecting those who arrived in Australia by boat and it also suggests that the large majority of people experiencing citizenship delays arrived from Afghanistan. Importantly, these delays appear to have commenced after September 2013—that is, since this government has taken office. Also important to note is that all the applicants who have or are experiencing delays have already passed rigorous security assessments by ASIO and have already established their identity and claims to refugee status. One would presume that ASIO knows its stuff and that their assessments can and should be relied upon. One would also presume that, given such rigorous assessments have already been made, there would be no need to duplicate the process, no need to waste time and resources and no need to further complicate the bureaucratic process.

We are talking here about people who are already living in the community and already contributing in many ways to our Australian society. Since I was elected, I have been contacted or visited by several community members—not all in my electorate, I might add—who have come to me in absolute desperation about their ongoing citizenship delays. Without exception, every single one of the people who have approached me is gainfully employed, has lived within and amongst the community peacefully and has satisfactorily completed every step of the immigration process—every single one.

One of these is the case of 'A' who lodged his application in March 2015, four years after he was granted an onshore protection visa. He was called for a citizenship interview in July 2016, but it was cancelled and rescheduled for a later date. The interview was more like an interrogation, where 'A' felt that he was being treated like a criminal. I reiterate that this is despite having already passed rigorous tests and checks on his identity in order to be granted his refugee status. The interview lasted for three hours, during which time he was extensively questioned and had comments made to him by officers that he would be deported or imprisoned if his verbal story did not check out with his original documents already submitted nearly a year ago. I might add that never at any time leading up to the interview was he informed that the interview would be a further check of his identity. The Refugee Council has also heard from lawyers and migration agents saying that a few people have had their permanent refugee visas cancelled and subsequently have been redetained after completing an application for citizenship and attending an identity interview. In another case in my electorate, 'R', another person who arrived as an unauthorised maritime arrival, applied for the citizenship in January 2015 and his application still remains undetermined.

Since the abolition of the White Australia policy, both Labor and Liberal governments have maintained a bipartisan policy of non-discriminatory immigration, and that is something which we as Australians should all be proud of. But we have seen this Minister for Immigration attempt to bring in a visa revalidation bill that would have given him the power to require revalidation checks of whole groups of people under a certain visa class, beyond the proposed ten-year visa. This government keeps going. It keeps trying to undermine our non-discriminatory immigration system in underhanded ways. It keeps trying to introduce ways to implement policies and procedures that effectively discriminate. (Time expired)

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed a great pleasure to be able to stand and speak to this motion, because it gives me the opportunity to defend the right and it allows me to advocate for our departmental people and to say what a fantastic job I believe are doing in this space. They should be rewarded and complimented for the work that they do. I take objection to the blithe disregard shown by members on the other side for the amount of time it has taken to process applications—hopefully not casting any slurs on the departmental people for the way that they are assessing applications. They do an enormous task for our community—

Mr Hill interjecting—

And I would remind the good member that I sat very patiently and listened to your opening remarks, even when you showed contempt for the House and cast a personal slur on the minister. I sat and listened. I do not expect the same level of respect from the other side, but I just note that I showed you a level of respect in this place.

Australian citizenship is the highest privilege that we can bestow upon eligible Australians. In my own electorate, going to citizenship ceremonies is one of the highlights of my year. They are incredibly emotional journeys. Can I tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, my electorate is not as mixed as some of the more metropolitan areas, but we have Scottish and Irish and Germans and, for those new citizens that have come to this place, I suggest that they protect the Australian values far more aggressively than others, and they are far more protective of the rights and privileges of new Australians seeking to live here. They are very protective. Given that they have gone through the front door, they are protective of that front-door measure.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection assesses each citizenship application individually and on its merits, ensuring that Australian citizenship will only be conferred on people who fully satisfy the provisions under the Australian Citizenship Act under which the departmental people make their assessment. They make their assessment based on the act. So don't come in and attack the minister, don't come in and attack—indirectly—the departmental people; put amendments to the act. All applicants must meet a range of legislative criteria under the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 including satisfying the residence requirements, passing the Australian citizenship test, having basic English, being of good character, maintaining residence or a close and continuing association with Australia, and safely identifying the provisions. I do not think anyone in this House takes umbrage at that set of criteria. So when the departmental people then make an assessment against that criteria, we should not be suggesting that one group of personnel are being shown favouritism over another group.

The department has received a sustained increase in the number of applications for Australian citizenship, including a significant increase in applications from humanitarian entrants, including former illegal maritime arrivals who arrived under the previous Labor government. The department assesses each citizenship application individually and on its own merits. All applications for Australian citizenship to be conferred must meet the legislative criteria, regardless of how or when the person arrived in Australia. The departmental staff act with the utmost professionalism in these cases, and they should not be held in blithe disregard by those opposite. There is no separate process regarding citizenship applications for IMAs. Applicants who present limited identification information or who have inconsistent or altered identity information may undergo more extensive checking if necessary, irrespective of how they arrived here.

This government has moved very proactively and has acted to ensure that those dual nationals who betrayed their allegiance to Australia by engaging in terrorist related activities lose their privilege of Australian citizenship. This government believes there should be a high standard for those seeking to be Australian citizens. Australian citizenship carries with it a great privilege and it should be respected by all Australians.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Melbourne's southeast has welcomed many new communities over the past century. Large communities of Cambodian Australians, Vietnamese Australians and Indian Australians—to name just a few—have made Melbourne's southeast their home and have made vast contributions to the great multicultural fabric that makes up greater Melbourne.

More recent arrivals include the Sudanese Australian community and the Hazara Afghan community, which are emerging in Melbourne's southeast and, in particular, in the City of Greater Dandenong. The Dandenong market is one of the hidden gems of Melbourne, with food, shops and entertainment from countless cultures there for the community to enjoy. This market with its Afghan bazaar and Vietnamese, Mauritian, Indian and Sri Lankan food stalls, to name just a few, symbolises the opportunity that Australia offers and the multicultural melting pot that makes our country great.

New communities face many challenges and do not need additional challenges caused by failings in the government's immigration system. I recently joined the member for Bruce, Julian Hill, at a community meeting in Dandenong South, in my electorate, where around 400 residents—mostly of Hazara background, shared their concerns about the farcically long delays in the processing of citizenship applications for people on protection visas.

Some of the stories I heard were shocking, with some applicants waiting years for their applications to be decided. One man told the meeting how he has lived in Australia since 2010 and, having satisfied the residency requirements, applied for citizenship in July 2014. He is still waiting, on a decision from the minister for immigration, nearly three years on. Another man, who has not seen his wife and children for over five years, spoke of his desire to become an Australian citizen and to work to make Australia an even better place. It has been nearly two years since he applied for citizenship, without his application having been process. This kind of delay is unacceptable.

On 16 December 2016 the Federal Court of Australia found, in the case of BMF16 and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, that delays by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in the processing of citizenship applications by two men on protection visas were unreasonable. The two men had been waiting, respectively, for 18 and 23 months from the date of their applications. It came to light in the Federal Court proceeding that there were only 12 departmental staff responsible for processing over 10,000 citizenship applications that had been assessed as requiring further assessment. With such an obvious need for staff in this division of the department of immigration, the only explanation for such a delay would be a deliberate draining of resources from the division that processes citizenship applications from people on protection visas.

People who aspire to the great privilege of Australian citizenship and who have qualified to apply for citizenship should be treated with respect. By ignoring and delaying citizenship applications by people on protection visas, the Turnbull government is failing tests of fairness and lawfulness. These targeted delays are, frankly, unAustralian. That is why I wrote to the minister for immigration on 28 February this year, to highlight the concerns raised by residents in my electorate about those significant delays. I told him that these delays were deeply concerning and I said that it shows unwillingness by the government—in which he is a senior minister—to provide the required resources, to his department, to finalise these applications in a reasonable time frame.

I am seeking an explanation from the minister for immigration as to why he has let times blow out with so many citizenship applications. I want to see the government's plan to bring the processing of citizenship applications within a reasonable and lawful time frame. As you would expect from this government, I am yet to receive a response to my letter. Perhaps I too will be waiting two years for my letter to be responded to, as citizenship applicants who want to become citizens of our great country are also being kept waiting two years. I call on the government and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to do their job and to take action to ensure that all citizenship applications are processed within a time frame in line with community expectations and in line with the law of our country.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bruce for moving this motion because it gives me an opportunity to speak about something that is happening in my electorate—in fact, something that is happening to people who live in my electorate. It was way back in 2014 when my staff first brought to my attention the increasing length of time people were waiting to get ceremonies or waiting for their applications for citizenship to be assessed. At first, it was quite subtle. There were some unusual stories, but it was quite subtle. But, over the 2014 and 2015 years, our concerns grew as we heard stories of people who had been given a date for a citizenship ceremony and then been told two days before by voicemail that the ceremony was not on, only to drive past and see that it was. People were being told that they could not be scheduled for a ceremony for several months. People were waiting a lot longer than the 12 months which is the standard. In fact, if it takes longer than 12 months, they are supposed to be advised in writing by the minister, and yet it was not happening. We were finding that we were using more and more of the resources of our office chasing down what was happening to applications that were, at times, years old.

In 2015, the Refugee Council noticed the same thing and did a report, and that report was quite damning. They surveyed 188 people, and they found exactly the same stories that we found. Rather than 80 per cent of applications being processed in 80 days, the statistic according to the department, they found that, of these 188 people from refugee backgrounds, the average person waited for 215 days, and the longest waits were 603, 623 and 682 days. Of those who completed the test and were yet to attend a ceremony, a full quarter of them waited 357 days from the time of their application while the average waiting time was 270 days. Two hundred and seventy days is a long time between actually doing everything you need to do—going through the process, sitting the test, being accepted and then just waiting for a ceremony—and it being made final.

That is made worse by what is known as direction 62, which is a ministerial direction which rules that no applications for family reunions will be considered. They just basically go to the bottom of the pile until people become citizens. I had one really quite beautiful man incredibly traumatised because his young child is still in his home country with no-one and she is being abused. He believes she will die before he ever sees her again. We had another person who was forcibly separated from their two-year-old, and that child is now eight. They have found her and they are trying to get her back to Australia. These are dreadful stories that we are hearing and dreadful delays that seem to be focused on people who came by boat more than others. One of our biggest complaints here is the seemingly different treatment of people depending on how they arrived here.

Last year, two young men took the department to the Federal Court over extensive delays, and the judgement by the court was really quite interesting. Those two men had been waiting 18 and 23 months respectively, and the judgement was quite damning. There was evidence received that more than 10,000 applications required further assessment as of July 2016, yet there were only 12 officers in the department who were trained to assess those applications. So there were 10,000 applications requiring further assessment and only 12 staff to do it. It was also noted that the evidence provided suggested that something beyond resourcing of the citizenship program had caused very significant delays and that the possibility of applications being ordered by reference to an unreasonable rationale could not be excluded. This is a damning judgement by the courts of the government's behaviour in this.

I can accept at face value that the government might believe that the reassessments are necessary for security reasons. I can accept that at face value. What I cannot accept is true is that the solution is to have these people who you fear are not legitimate asylum seekers and may be dangerous to Australia waiting out in the community for even longer. In fact, if you think they are a risk, the thing to do is to speed up the processing, put extra staff on and get it done so that you can identify those who you do not want to accept as citizens, remove them and let the others get on with their lives. Every month we delay the citizenship test makes it harder for these people to settle. I strongly call on the government to get its act together in relation to these delays.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have heard from many constituents in my electorate about this issue. Some of their stories are about long delays in processing times for all sorts of applications. As I am sure do my colleagues on both sides of the House, we get constituents coming in to the office trying to make sense of the long delays there seem to be when it comes to this process of citizenship application with the testing, checking and then conferral.

A constituent of mine who has applied for citizenship of our great country came to my office last year. He had lodged his application in September of the previous year—2015. He had not heard anything from the department, so he came in to see me after I was elected to try to work out what was going on and what was going wrong. When he lodged the application the estimated processing time frame for an application was 80 days, but there he was an entire year later no closer to having a decision than when he made that application. These delays caused undue stress and concern to him and his family. As this constituent had had limited interaction with the government, he did not want to stir the pot by making any inquiries or making too much of a deal about it, but he pleaded with me to assist, which we did. He is a fine member of the community, holding down a full-time job and with good references. When you sit down with one of your constituents you can just tell sometimes, 'This is a good man who wants to be a citizen of our country.' He has been through the proper application processes, but there has been this interminable wait that has continued. He did not want to make too much drama about it, but he did the right thing in coming to see us. That is our job, but we are getting so many of these people who are not being responded to in anywhere near the time lines that have been laid out.

These uncertainties and delays have continued. He has been unable to travel to visit sick family overseas whilst he is waiting for this decision to be made on various applications. It has been over a number of years now. Eventually at the urging of his local church he came to my office seeking an update. We followed up with the department and the minister, and since then he has been able to sit a citizenship test. As I said, it is our job and we are happy to do it, but it should not take intervention from a federal electorate office to make these things happen

Let me be clear: I am not disparaging the staff of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection at all. They are doing their job and they are doing a fine job, but it seems that there are things that the government could be doing to improve the situation. It makes you wonder why there are such lengthy delays. It is outrageous that people who want to become citizens have to wait much longer than the period of time they are told they will. If there is a resourcing problem, fix it so that people can be processed. As the member for Parramatta said, it is in our interests to not only stick to what we say we are going to do but also do it in an expedient way so that people who passionately want to be Australian citizens can do that. If there is someone who should be taken out off the queue and looked at more carefully, we can do that as well.

I have said to the minister for citizenship that I am happy to help with the backlog. There is a huge backlog.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have not been able to run a citizenship ceremony. The previous CLP member ran one every other week when she was running citizenship ceremonies. But when I became the member for Solomon, I have not been able to run one. But he tells me he will allow me to run a citizenship ceremony, so I look forward to that.

An honourable member interjecting—

I would like to think citizenship is not being politicised. I look forward to the minister for citizenship allowing me to help with his current backlog problem.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.