Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My electorate of Fisher on the Sunshine Coast perfectly embodies the words of Australia's national anthem 'Truly our land abounds with nature's gifts' from the spectacular and fruitful hills of our hinterland to the golden beaches of our coast. There is a wealth and opportunity to be worked for in our abundant fishing stocks, our bountiful agricultural land and our growing population. On the Sunshine Coast, as much as anywhere in Australia, our warm and inviting seas permeate our lifestyle. Sunshine Coast residents certainly have every reason to rejoice in our country and that is why so many Australians, both those born here and those who were not, choose Fisher as their home, and why wouldn't they? However, this bill is about securing and fulfilling the other sentiments of that anthem. The familiar words of the composer of our national anthem, Peter Dodds McCormick, celebrate our nation but they also challenge us to live up to it. Our anthem calls on us to combine with courage for our country and it enjoins us to keep Australia not only young but also free.

This bill invites us to look again at how we fulfil our nation's promise and proposes a way forward that I believe all Australians can get behind. This certainly remains a young country. Formal Australian citizenship has existed for less than a lifetime. Membership of our nation is still not defined by our families' generations of history on our land. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 28 per cent of us today were born overseas. That percentage has increased every year for the last 15 years. In fact, only 51 per cent of Australians were born here to two Australian parents. Among our Australian citizens today are representatives of more than 300 original nationalities. One in 20 of us nationally, and more in Queensland, were born in the United Kingdom. Many others were born in New Zealand, China, India, the Philippines or Vietnam. Two hundred thousand of us are from Italy, 180,000 from South Africa and 150,000 from Malaysia. In recent years, we've added to these numbers with compassion for those in the world's growing conflict zones. Our annual intake of humanitarian and refugee visas has risen this year from 13,750 to 16,750, and next year it will rise again to almost 19,000. This is in addition to the 12,000 Syrian refugees that the government has committed to take.

Nearly a third of us were not born here, while almost half of us are the children of one immigrant parent. We come from varied countries and diverse cultures from all over the world. Yet few, if any, countries with a democratic make-up like ours have our social harmony and our cultural integration. We boast that ours is the most successful multicultural society on earth. So what binds us? What is it that can bring us together and mould from this diversity a shared community and a common identity as an Australian? There are two things that unite us: the legal instrument of citizenship and a shared commitment to Australian values. We appreciate our common future through our common status as citizens, while we ensure the success of that future through our commitment to an Australian way of life. The two must go together, and both must be universally strong.

When it comes to the institution itself, since 1948 we've recognised that our shared way of life needs its own legal recognition. For almost 70 years, we have agreed that a system of citizenship is necessary to give form and focus to our sense of community. No-one today, I would suggest, would deny that Australian citizenship is crucial to our immigration system, to our representation overseas or to our sense of nationhood. However, to be effective in cementing our common identity, citizenship must be meaningful in itself to all Australians, both those who were born here and those who joined us later in life. It must have significance and integrity. It is a serious concern that, in the government's 2015 consultation, 64 per cent of respondents believed that Australian citizenship is undervalued. When it comes to our identities, perception is extremely important. When people do not believe that citizenship is meaningful to their fellow countrymen and countrywomen, it loses its power to bind us. In part, this bill is about repairing that perception and returning the unifying force to Australian citizenship.

In the consultation, people identified a range of reasons why they believe that citizenship is undervalued. Some identified that the rights and responsibilities of citizenship are taken for granted. Respondents said they felt that Australian citizenship was too easily won and that it was too open to those who want to game the system, getting the economic and legal benefits without making any substantive commitments to our country. While our people are happy to look upon new citizens as Australians just like them, they rightly expect those who hold citizenship to ensure that the term retains meaning by putting in the time and effort to become one of us.

With the rights of citizenship, however, there must come responsibilities. This bill will go a long way to making that a reality. The bill will ensure that all applicants for citizenship have a record of four years of permanent residency. Applicants will have four years to learn about life in our country and demonstrate the considered seriousness of their commitment to Australia. During those four years, the bill will also require that applicants demonstrate their active efforts to integrate into our society by sending their children to an Australian school, getting a job here and otherwise contributing to our community.

The bill will require them to speak English to a competent standard. How can an Australian citizenship bring us together when already more than one in five Australians do not speak English at home? This percentage has been rising since 2011. While people would never demand that all citizens speak English at all times, and nor should they, they rightly expect that they should be able to communicate successfully with all of their fellow Australians. That is one thing this bill will help to achieve.

Others in the consultation believed that citizenship was undervalued because of a fundamental contradiction that there are people in our country who hold Australian citizenship while maintaining allegiance to a culture or a way of life that explicitly rejects our values. I know that this is a concern to many of my constituents. Every week, I receive letters, emails or messages online which express local people's concern that the values of our society are being undermined by individuals who are permitted to become Australians while rejecting so many of the beliefs that we hold dear. I don't want to exaggerate the size of this problem. Most new Australians embrace our way of life and integrate well into our society. However, there are a minority who cling to views on issues like the role of women in society or the place of extreme religious interpretations in our institutions that most Australians would consider unacceptable. I will say more about this, but it is certainly the case that this reality undermines the perceived value of citizenship for those who do adhere to our values.

The bill will go a long way to repairing that perception by requiring all new Australians to take a pledge of allegiance to our country and to its people. Firstly, we will reassure all citizens that those that share their privilege have been required to think carefully about their allegiances and to commit to Australia. Secondly, by requiring all new Australians to sign a statement of values and demonstrate that they have lived in a manner consistent with those values, we will reassure all citizens that their country men and women have made a decision, a decisive commitment to what makes us all Australian. With the four-year period of residency as a prerequisite, we will be able to track an applicant's commitment to those values.

This bill will do a great deal to restore the integrity and the meaning of Australian citizenship. It will restore faith and confidence in what it means to be an Australian and ensure that this legal instrument can play its part in bringing us together and supporting our national identity. But this bill will do more than that. It will ensure that Australians believe in our citizenship.

The bill will also contribute, in itself, to ensuring that our community genuinely pulls together in upholding and promoting our shared Australian values. We are clear on what those core Australian values are. They are listed in an Australian values statement which is available on the Department of Immigration and Border Protection website and in their Life in Australia booklet. It is worth reading the relevant section of this statement. It is clear and succinct. This House, like our prospective citizens, would do well to know exactly what we are signing up to. It reads:

Apart from it being an extraordinarily lengthy sentence, who could argue that those are very important values that we should all share?

It also states:

Which of us would not support such a statement? Which of us could not sign that statement today? Most importantly for this debate, which of us could honestly say that Australia would not be a better place if every member of our society had the same commitment to those values? We can never guarantee that, but, when it comes to those from outside Australia that we welcome into our society, we have an opportunity to ensure that they are made aware of their responsibilities and that they have agreed to uphold them. This bill facilitates that opportunity.

It also requires applicants to match their words with their deeds. Not only will they have to sign the statement of Australian values but their conduct over their years of permanent residency will need to demonstrate their commitment to upholding them. Integration is more than sending your children to school and getting a job, though these are undoubtedly important. We cannot accept as Australian citizens those who use the privilege of being here to advocate for discrimination, for violence, or for oppression of others. In particular, we cannot allow those who have acted in direct contradiction of our values to become citizens. We cannot allow those who have committed domestic violence, engaged in the dreadful practice of female genital mutilation or become involved with organised crime to join us as Australians. These things would be specifically assessed by the department under this bill and would constitute grounds for rejecting an application for citizenship.

Today 80 per cent of eligible immigrants in Australia become citizens. Australian citizenship remains one of the world's most prized and sought after identities. That fact is a testament to the success of our society, but it is also a challenge. It is the responsibility of all Australians to preserve what it is that makes Australia fair. It is in particular the responsibility of those of us in this place, whose unique privilege it is to set the terms under which we accept new people into our community. Our citizenship system gives us an unparalleled tool to support the society that Australians want to be part of. It is the system of our togetherness and a means to promote it. This bill restores the significance and the integrity of our citizenship system. It will help us to preserve the Australia that we want, and I commend it to the House.

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