Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The Democrats support Labor’s amendment, the effect of which would bring the residence requirement back to three years instead of four years. I place on the record—and this is also for the benefit of you, Temporary Chairman Marshall—that there was a proposed Democrat amendment to oppose clause 22. I now signal that we will not proceed with that. The preferred Democrat view was placed on the record when the government first announced that they were looking to extend the residence requirement from two years to three years. We stated that we were prepared to support that. That is not something completely out of proportion to what has been done in the past or by comparable countries. At that time, I think I said that the rationale given for extending it from two years to three years—that it might somehow assist with security concerns; and there was some debate after the London bombings—was simply ludicrous. Any suggestion that making people reside in Australia for three years instead of two, or four years instead of two, would somehow assist in any security issues regarding terrorism is farcical. Indeed, I would suggest that to some extent it is a bit offensive.

We need to work hard enough as it is to try and ensure that unreasonable prejudices towards migrants are not developed or validated in the community. Any suggestion that somehow there are security concerns with regard to whether or not migrants decide to become citizens just totally distorts where the debate needs to be when we are looking at how we deal with security and terrorism issues. It is a difficult and important debate. I certainly do not suggest that I have all the answers, but I do know that one of the answers is not going down a completely ridiculous and irrelevant dead-end side alley about how long people have to live in a country before they become citizens.

There are some valid debates with regard to integration and those sorts of things. It is useful to have those debates. The more we can have those sorts of debates without having some sort of undercurrent of attempts to look for dog-whistling opportunities and to play on some of the prejudices that exist in the Australian community, as they do in any community around the world, the more constructive the debate would be. Whilst I was prepared to accept that extending the period of residency for citizenship from two years to three years was reasonable enough and acceptable enough, I do not think that extending it for a further year, to four years, is justified. I certainly do not think the case has been made.

As always, the Democrats are prepared to consider the arguments. We are willing to look at the issues, hear people’s views and change our views if the case has been made. No case has been made. It was just straight off the top of the head of the government: ‘Let’s just push this out another year and make it look like we somehow need to make things a bit harder for migrants because they somehow need to be tested a bit further because there’s some problem.’ I do not think any case was made that there was any problem to start with. Frankly, I do not think there was any case made that there was a problem with two years. Having it bounced from not two to three years but two to four years—without any sort of consultation, any sort of flagging or any sort of case being made about what the problem was—was pathetic, frankly.

It actually offends me to some extent because I do believe citizenship is an important issue and something that does not get the attention it deserves in policy debate and public debate. That off-the-cuff, politically motivated shift in a pretty fundamental area regarding citizenship is too dismissive of an important issue. I agree that we need to more strongly promote the importance and value of Australian citizenship. I believe we need to much more strongly affirm not just the responsibilities but the rights attached to Australian citizenship. In that area, I think we are letting down some of our citizens. If you want to encourage people to become citizens, which I think is the public position of all parties in this chamber, why would you double the length of time people have to live here before they can become citizens if you cannot demonstrate that that is necessary to their effective integration? That has not been demonstrated at all.

My preferred position is that the residency requirement be three years; if that is not adopted, my second preferred position would be for it to stay at two years, which was what my foreshadowed amendment was meant to achieve, although I think it probably went a little wider than that—I think we can cover it with the vote on the amendment that provides for three years. If that is not successful we are stuck with the four years.

I want to point to one another issue I have with this extension to four years and ask a question of Minister Scullion regarding this. It is the first time I have asked him a question, I think, in his new ministerial role. If this bill is passed, section 21 of the new act will say that a person is eligible to become a citizen if the minister is satisfied the person fits a whole range of criteria. The bill provides that the person must either satisfy the residence requirement—which is what we are talking about at the moment, be it four years or three—or, as an alternative, has completed relevant defence service, which is under section 23. I can accept the different qualifications there for either a residence requirement or relevant defence service, but the longer the residence requirement—and now we are stretching it to four years; quite a big disparity—the greater the disparity with the required length of defence service.

As I read it, and the minister can correct me if I am wrong, new section 21 provides that the person can either satisfy the residence requirement, which is to be present in Australia for at least four years including at least one year of permanent residence immediately preceding their application, or complete relevant defence service of at least three months in the permanent forces of the Commonwealth or six months service in the Australian Naval Reserve, Army Reserve or Air Force Reserve.

Frankly, I think it would surprise a lot of Australians that we are advertising to get non-Australians to enlist in our defence forces. That is okay—I presume they get screened and go through all the appropriate criteria. It is a bit anomalous that we are saying, on the one hand, that people have to live here for four years before we can be sure they are real Aussies and not terrorists and that we have to be sure they know everything about Australia but, on the other hand, we will have them straightaway in our permanent defence forces of the Commonwealth. And if they serve just three months they are immediately eligible for citizenship. It seems a bit anomalous to me. I am not saying that people should not be able to do that, but it seems like rather a mixed message.

My question to the minister is: firstly, is it currently the case that we accept people who are not Australian citizens and, indeed, not Australian residents to serve in our Defence Force; secondly, is my reading accurate that, if those people who are not Australian residents serve just three months in the permanent forces of the Commonwealth, it in effect can be a fast track to citizenship? I ask the question because the more we lengthen the residency requirement, in this case to four years, the bigger the anomaly. If it was two years residence or a certain period in the Defence Force, it might not stick out so much. But when you push the residence requirement out to four years, this does appear to be quite an anomaly. I would appreciate an indication of whether, currently, people who are not residents are able to immediately enter the permanent forces of the ADF. If that reading is correct, is three months service in those permanent forces sufficient for them to meet the eligibility test for citizenship?