Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the restraint shown by some of the speakers who have spoken before me on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017. Forgive me if I can't feel quite so restrained, because I see this for what it is: a political fix and nothing more. This is a move by a government that is under great pressure politically. It has now been behind for I think 17 Newspolls in a row. It's in dire straits. What does a government do when it's in dire straits? What does a government do when it can't win the debate on big ideas? It drags out the flag and plays to the fault lines in our community: xenophobia, racism and insecurity. When in doubt, pull out some more flags. It became a bit of a joke how many flags former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his ministers would have behind them at different announcements, particularly when it came to national security, and we all breathed a sigh of relief and thought, 'At least there'll be fewer flags behind the Prime Minister now we have a new Prime Minister,' but it seems there's a race to see who can have the most flags behind them. The fact is that this is a political fix. It is a means of trying to turn the government's fortunes around by turning the attention to patriotism, to nationalism and to national security.

The other day the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection said:

This bill reinforces the integrity of our citizenship program. This will help maintain strong public support for migration and the value of Australian citizenship in what is an increasingly challenging national security environment and complex global security situation.

What complete and utter nonsense! What on earth is this bill going to do for our national security? If anything, it's going to diminish our national security, because it is saying to people who are already in our community, our towns and our streets: 'You know what? We thought you were, but we've now decided you're not good enough to become one of us.' Sure, pandering to racism, to xenophobia and to insecurity in the community might pull back a few votes from people who have drifted off to One Nation and the Australian Conservatives, but it will do nothing to foster cohesion in this community, it will do nothing to foster our wonderful multiculturalism in this nation and it will do nothing to make us safer. It will make us less safe. That's the bottom line here.

This flies in the face of all of the evidence of how successful our form of multiculturalism and our approach to multiculturalism have been in the past. It is a fact that we are one of the richest, most successful and most stable multicultural communities to be found anywhere on this planet, so why on earth are we going to tamper with it via some politically motivated changes to our citizenship and other arrangements? It beggars belief. Why would we do that? Why would we turn around and say, 'Actually, to all the people who have come to this country over the years who perhaps couldn't speak the best English or write the best essay, we've now decided, by today's standards, that you wouldn't make a good Australian and we wouldn't allow you to be an Australian'? In fact, this is an attack on multiculturalism. What's wrong with the fact that someone who lives next door mightn't speak the best English, isn't able to write the best essay or hasn't been here for countless years? Does it matter? Of course it doesn't matter.

In fact, can I just reflect, for a moment, on some neighbours that I had when I was living in Sydney some years ago. They were a beautiful Italian family. The mum and the dad were very, very old. I suspect they were probably in their late 70s or 80s by the time I was living next to them, and they could barely speak a word of English. They had come out to our wonderful country with that exodus of refugees from Europe after the Second World War. They helped build this country, they helped build Sydney, they held good jobs, they were law-abiding people and they started a family. They had beautiful children who themselves have now had children, who are the grandchildren of my neighbours. They were law-abiding, hardworking and decent people—exactly the sort of people you wanted to have next door to you. Every year, they'd go to the markets, bring back a ute full of grapes and make their wine in their garage to get them through the next year. The backyard was full of beautiful vegetables—the most beautiful vegetables you could find. They were great neighbours, and they could barely speak a word of English. But did it matter? No, it didn't matter one hoot. They were good people, and they did a lot of good for this country. But now we're saying to people like that who might come to Australia: 'You're not good enough to be one of us.' Heavens, unless they can write the sort of essay that some people in this place would struggle to write, they can't possibly be one of us! This is an attack on multiculturalism. This is the government saying: 'We don't support multiculturalism, and we want to end it. Unless you look and sound like us, we don't want to have you in this country.'

What we're trying to do here is counterproductive. Are we saying to the best people, the most clever people and the most talented people in the world, 'You're not welcome in Australia unless you look, sound and write like us'? We're saying, to the best business people in the world, to the best sports people in the world, to the best academics, researchers and scientists in the world, and—you know what—some of the nicest people in the world, 'You're not welcome here.' And that's all because a government and a Prime Minister are on the ropes politically and think it's time to drag out national security and pander to xenophobia and racism. Surely we're better than this. Let One Nation and the Australian Conservatives—these fringe dwellers—go off and pander to the racists and the xenophobes in our community. Thankfully, there are not too many of them. But, when the government and one of this country's major political parties think it's okay to drag out rot like this bill, we have really hit rock bottom. We shouldn't be acting like this, the Prime Minister shouldn't be acting like this and the government shouldn't be acting like this. We are a rich and multicultural country. I don't care if the person who lives next to me doesn't speak good English so long as they're a decent person who wants to work hard, contribute to this country and follow the laws of the land. That's what matters. What about the disadvantaged people in the world? Don't we want to help them out as well? What about the asylum seekers who would come to this country genuinely fleeing for their life? And the vast majority have genuinely fled for their life. Why wouldn't we embrace them and make them welcome?

I know an Australian from Melbourne—some of you might know of him—Najaf Mazari. He came out some years ago as an asylum seeker. He's from Afghanistan. He wrote a book some years ago, which I launched for him in Hobart, and there's a beautiful account in there, in an otherwise dark story, of when he was imprisoned at the Woomera detention centre. There's a beautiful page in there where he is obviously reflecting on all of the people who were in detention with him and he says words to the effect of, 'Within this detention centre there are doctors, engineers, nurses, social workers, builders, plumbers and electricians.' He says, 'In this detention centre are all of the people needed to make a country, every skill you can imagine, and people who have fled for their lives, who have made it to Australia.' Fortunately many of those people have been able to stay here. Fortunately many of those people have become Australians. Najaf was nominated as an Australian of the Year in Victoria in 2014. His image was an entrant in the Archibald Prize at one stage. It was good then. But now we're saying to people like that: 'You're not welcome. We don't want people like you. You don't look like us. You don't talk like us. You don't write like us. Well, you mustn't be as good as us and you're not welcome.' The irony of this is breathtaking.

This country of course has the most wonderful Aboriginal heritage. There was a revelation the other day that in fact our First Australians arrived even earlier than we first thought—not 40,000 years but perhaps 60,000, 65,000 or 70,000 years ago. What a wonderful history. But modern Australia, or Australia since settlement, has been built by people coming here. They built the Snowy Hydro, they built the hydro in Tasmania, they built the railway lines, they built our suburbs, they built our roads and they built our hospitals. They are now the academics in our universities. They are now the leaders of this country. They are now our senior businesspeople. They built us. We are them.

That is until now, until a government with 17 bad Newspoll polls in a row. Their political self-interest is more important to them than humanity and than this country acting like a decent, law-abiding country with compassion. This is their political self-interest in government. Because they've had 17 bad Newspoll polls in a row, they need to hang some flags behind them and pander to racism, pander to xenophobia and try to claw back those people who have drifted off to One Nation, the Australian Conservatives and the other fringe dwellers and bottom feeders. That's more important to them than to foster, continue and celebrate what has made this country great. Modern Australia was built by people from overseas. Australian multiculturalism is the most successful, stable and rich multiculturalism anywhere in the world. It's stable, it's safe, it's rich and it's wonderful. This government want to put their political self-interest ahead of that.

I make the point again that what this government is seeking to do here flies in the face of common sense. It flies in the face of decency and humanity. It's not in this country's self-interest. It doesn't matter if someone doesn't speak the best English. It doesn't matter if they can't write the sort of essay you might see in a university. It doesn't matter if they haven't been here for countless years. The only thing that matters is that they want to come here and that they commit to obey the law and be a good and productive member of this country. That's what matters. It's worked this far. This is a wonderful country, and we are wonderful exactly because of the ways we've done it in the past.

It is not good enough for this government to be putting first its political self-interest and its desire and willingness to pander to xenophobia and to racism—and that's what it is. If you come from a country that is 'like us'—so if you look like us, you speak like us and you write like us—you're welcome under these laws. But if you come from a place that doesn't look like us, speak like us or write like us, heavens! If you're an Asian, a South Asian or a Middle Easterner, the government are saying, 'You're not the sort of people we want in this place, so we're going to build this punitive infrastructure and legislative framework to do everything we can to keep people like you out of here, even though it's people like you who built this country.' I think of the family that lived next door to me in Sydney—the most beautiful Italian family you would ever meet: good people, law-abiding people. They built this country. People like that should be welcomed. They should be embraced. They should be allowed to become Australian citizens. That's what we should be doing—not what this government is intent on doing here.

I will oppose this bill, and in doing so I will represent the great many people in the electorate of Denison who oppose this bill. And I will stand with the great many people in this country who oppose this bill—people who see it for what it is: a political fix for a Prime Minister under pressure, a political fix for a party under pressure and a political fix for a Prime Minister and a party that are prepared to abandon decency and common sense, all in a misguided attempt to improve their political fortunes. Well, it's wrong. I won't support it, and I will be delighted to stand with many other members in this place when we don't support it.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to make a contribution to the debate today on the Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017. I do so as a representative—a very proud representative, I must say—of one of the most multicultural communities in the whole of this country. A lot of people will come into the chamber and make a contribution on this bill, and it is an incredibly important one, but I want to say that I am here today speaking on behalf of a community that will be directly affected by the changes made in this bill. Not only will they be affected; this bill reflects on the contribution so many people in my community have made to this country through decades and decades of hard work.

Labor is going to oppose this bill. I will go through some of the detailed reasons why we fundamentally object to some of the things that are being proposed. First I want to highlight how important the discussion about this piece of legislation is. People who spend a bit of time watching parliament at home can see members of parliament coming in and out of this House day after day, and we can get very excited and do a lot of huffing and puffing about details of bills that don't affect many people in the Australian community. This is not such a bill. This is not a bill that deals with benign questions. It is one that deals with the most fundamental of questions—that is: who are we as Australians?

This bill represents a fundamental departure; it represents a fundamental redrawing of the line between who is in the Australian community and who is out of the Australian community. I had thought that this was a question that would not give rise to fundamental differences of opinion across the chamber. I, in my naivety, believe that as Australians we are represented by values that we share. We've got a lot of young people in the gallery today. In their citizenship class they probably sit down and talk about the characteristics that define Australians. They probably talk about things like a belief in egalitarianism, a belief in Australian equality. We share this very important commitment to multiculturalism, reflecting that almost all of us in this country have travelled a long way, from a different country, to build a life here. There are things like our fundamental belief in fairness, in ditching all the airs and graces that probably troubled life back in the countries where many of us came from. But what joins all these features is that this is about values. When you ask the normal Australian in the street, 'What defines us as a community?' they are going to talk about Australian values. What we've learnt from this bill being put forward in the chamber is that those opposite have an entirely different idea of what it means to be Australian. This government believes that it's not your values that make you an Australian citizen but that it's something that seems to me to be fairly arbitrary—that is, how fancy your English skills are.

I make the point—and I will do so continually in my remarks today—that if these laws had been in place decades ago, many thousands of the people that I represent in this chamber would never have had the chance to become Australian citizens. I can say with absolutely certainty that our country would be so much poorer for losing the contribution of the people who make my community the extraordinary place that it is. The people that I represent make fine Australians, and everywhere I go, in every corner of my community, there are migrants who are doctors, who are lawyers, who are brilliant parents, who are teaching the next generation of Australians. There are people who are doing extraordinary and marvellous things.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member for Hotham will be given an opportunity at that time to conclude her contribution.