Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, were you suggesting the emphasis was on plain English or was it a plain contribution? In any event, while I certainly do not doubt the sincerity of the honourable member opposite who just spoke, I disagree strongly with much of what he said. I think it would be broadly held in the Australian community and in the Australian parliament that citizenship has been a success in Australia since the creation of the notion of Australian citizenship in 1949. I suspect that where the opposition and the government would differ would be more on the detail of what citizenship is supposed to entail, rather than on the importance of the concept of Australian citizenship.

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005 represent significant changes to Australian citizenship. Australian citizenship is a system that has served us well for over half a century. The Australian Citizenship Act 1948 has proudly served Australia, determining who could become citizens—and, for that matter, who could not become citizens—for almost 60 years.

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 does not propose a complete rewriting of the act but will usher in an entirely new act. There are many proposed changes and the government is of the view that, given the substance of those changes, it is important to produce a new act rather than simply to have a bandaid approach. The new act will be more accessible, it will be better numbered, it will be easier to understand and hopefully it will be more logically organised. It also brings in a number of changes that were proposed following recommendations from the Australian Citizenship Council in 2000 and following government policy reviews in 2004.

I think most members of parliament are honoured to attend citizenship ceremonies around the country. I suspect that those ceremonies may change in flavour depending on where you are. The sorts of people and the origin of those people who become citizens would vary according to the part of Australia in which one resides, but those citizenship ceremonies have certain common elements when people accept rights to fully participate in Australian society. Of course, accompanying those new rights are responsibilities.

Unfortunately, in Australia today I think there is far too much emphasis on rights—what my rights or your rights are—and there is not an adequate emphasis on the accompanying responsibilities with those rights. They go hand in hand and it really is important that people who do become Australian citizens acquire the responsibilities of Australian citizenship in addition to the various rights that attach to the concept of Australian citizenship.

Most citizenship ceremonies appear to be conducted by local authority heads of councils—in most cases, mayors—and I must say that I have been fortunate to preside over a number of citizenship ceremonies in my capacity as the member for Fisher. Whether ceremonies have large numbers of new citizens or only one or two, they are very moving. It really is interesting to see just what this important step means to people, some of whom have been here for a short time, and others who have been here almost since the concept of Australian citizenship commenced.

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005 do propose numbers of important changes to Australia’s citizenship guidelines—for example, those citizens who inadvertently renounced their citizenship by applying for additional citizenship of another country may be able to restore their Australian citizenship, and children who lost their citizenship under this condition may now be able to qualify for citizenship. The age limits for applying for citizenship by descent will be removed and the definitions for spouses will now include genuine de facto partners.

Other alterations include the capacity for citizenship to be revoked in cases where it was acquired through fraudulent means. There is an increase in the provisions to block and revoke the granting of citizenship, especially cases that involve an applicant committing serious offences, where applicants are assessed by ASIO to be a security risk and where they are involved in court matters.

There has been substantial discussion in the community over certain of the remarks by Sheikh al-Hilali in recent times. My understanding is that under our act as it currently stands there is no provision to strip citizenship from people who no longer espouse Australian values. I consider if that is not in the act—and I understand that it is not—then that certainly ought to be included in the act because we have lots of people from around the world who want to join our Australian family. It is important that we only have those people who are prepared to represent the essence of what is Australian and the essence of Australian values.

In the bills before the chamber there will also be provisions to grant citizenship to those who are born in Papua New Guinea while that country was a territory of Australia, where those people had at least one parent born in Australia. In addition, those children of Australian citizens who were born outside Australia will have greater abilities to be registered as citizens by descent. In 1949 it was required that these children be registered within one year of birth. This was increased to 18 years and then changed again to 25 years in 2002.

However, surprisingly there are some residents who have missed out on becoming citizens by descent simply because they and their parents were unaware of the time limits for registration and the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transnationals and Consequential) Bill 2005 will remove the time limits altogether. This is a very equitable measure and it reflects accurately the notion that children who have a very significant tie to Australia should not be denied something as significant as Australian citizenship simply due to a lack of knowledge of the requirements and guidelines.

The bills also lengthen the time frame between when new citizens arrive in Australia and the date when they become eligible to apply for citizenship. Historically under Australian law, Commonwealth citizens I think had to wait two years and those who were rather quaintly deemed to be aliens had to wait five years. For various reasons, I suppose, of feeling that there was a need to treat Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth citizens the same, everyone was required to be here for only two years as opposed to the previous situation. Personally I consider that to be here for fewer than 800 days indicates that we are really dumbing down Australian citizenship. We are essentially giving it away. I think the two-year requirement as it currently stands is woefully inadequate and that the step to increase the two years to four years is certainly a step in the right direction, but I would personally increase it to five years. Five years is, I understand, the period one has to wait for citizenship in the United States of America and also in the United Kingdom. A period of four years—five years as I said would be better but four years is certainly a step in the right direction—is regarded as a more suitable period in which prospective citizens are able to become familiar—

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