Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

I just find this an extraordinary clause. If somebody has been imprisoned in a foreign land, I am quite comfortable with that raising a particular discretion or sending some extra alert signs back to the minister, saying, ‘Hang on, you might not want to approve this person for citizenship.’ I am also very comfortable with there being a commitment that, if people have committed an offence under Australian law, there is an absolute bar. I do not think you need to have ministerial discretion if the offence was committed under Australian law. But why on earth are we placing ourselves in a situation where the law of another country will determine whether or not somebody is eligible for Australian citizenship? During my speech on the second reading—and the parliamentary secretary was there at the time—I could not find this section because at the time I was looking through the substantive bill and not through the amendments, so I apologise for not raising it at that time. We are not in a position to be able to move an amendment about this right now, but it is something we will be pursuing in the Senate.

But I have to say: if there is one concept in the world that other countries should have nothing to do with, it is a determination of who gets Australian citizenship. We have legislation before us now which says if somebody who fits this class of people spent part of their life in South Africa as an anti-apartheid activist and was imprisoned for more than five years in the cell next to Nelson Mandela, they are not allowed to become an Australian citizen. We have a situation here where, if somebody was involved in internal rebellion against Saddam Hussein and was imprisoned, and they fit the class of persons covered by this legislation, the minister of Australia has no discretion as to whether or not they are eligible for citizenship because that has already been ruled out by Saddam Hussein.

If somebody has spent part of their life as an activist in Burma and they found themselves under house arrest for a period of time in the same house, let us say, as Aung San Suu Kyi, and they fit this class of people, even if the Australian minister thinks this is a good person involved in a struggle against an evil regime and even if this person accords with every single Australian value that we would want upheld, the Australian minister is barred from allowing this person to receive citizenship.

I think if somebody has been imprisoned overseas it should be brought to the attention of the minister. It should be something which they have an extra look at. But why on earth, of all the legislation, has the government chosen to outsource citizenship—and not just outsource citizenship to our allies or to our close neighbours but outsource it to any country in the world? It does not matter what country it is. I respect that this section applies to a limited class of people, but even for any limited class I do not believe there should ever be a situation where the rest of the world takes control of who gets citizenship of Australia.

There will obviously be times when, as a member of the opposition, I will not be all that thrilled with the way a government minister exercises the discretion, but I will defend the fact that that is the person who should be exercising it—that the discretion should lie with the minister of the government of Australia, not with the criminal systems of some of the rogue regimes around the world.

This was not in the original bill. What sort of accident has caused this to end up as an amendment before the Australian parliament, I do not know. But the parliamentary secretary should make sure that by the time we come to divide on this in the House, he has sought leave to revisit this issue and take it out of the amendment. If there is one thing that Australia should have control of, it is Australian citizenship. I find it absolutely repugnant to come into the parliament of Australia and be told that we will allow any other country this power. It could have been the Taliban when they were in charge of Afghanistan and had Australians under arrest facing capital punishment for holding Bibles that were in Arabic. I do not want to know that a regime like that will actually get to determine for some class of people whether or not they are eligible for Australian citizenship. It is something that lies squarely with the responsibility of the government of Australia. Whoever is responsible for this drafting should understand that we will outsource many things; citizenship will never be one of them. (Time expired)

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