Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will be honest with you. I ummed and ahed about speaking on the Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017 because there are people on the Labor side of politics who are far more qualified than me. But after hearing a number of the contributions of government members, I thought it was important to put on the record views from my electorate and views from someone whose parents also migrated to this country. All of us have had the privilege of participating in citizenship ceremonies, and most speakers on this bill have mentioned that in their speeches. In Bendigo our citizenship ceremonies cite the second verse of the national anthem, which some people struggle with. The line that always causes people to smile is, 'For those who've come across the seas we've boundless plains to share.' It really reflects the nature of how many people in this country have migrated to this place to make Australia their home and to build their lives. It's something that those opposite choose to ignore at timed that suit them.

My parents, like so many in this place, migrated to Australia. My mum was a 10-pound Pom. She came over on a boat around the same time as the member for Warringah came over. They're about the same age. My dad is a migrant. He came over as a mechanic, also from England, at an age where there was an encouragement for young people with skills to come to this country. We have talked a lot on this side about how they would be affected by these rules today. The truth is, because they came from England, they get a pass. The truth is that they wouldn't have to sit the English test that so many other migrants and permanent residents from this country will have to do. Why their story is relevant is that whilst my mum went on to university since growing up in this country and is a brilliant academic working for Melbourne Uni, and would have no problems passing this test even if she was born in a country other than Australia, my dad is dyslexic. He is a great mechanic, a contributor to this society, but he would have no chance of passing this tougher test if his birth place was not England. That is one of the frustrations and problems that I and so many people on this side of the House have: you get a pass on having to sit the complex English test if you were born in the UK, the US, Canada or New Zealand. It's probably good for the Deputy Prime Minister that that is the case, because many of us have reflected in question time on how incoherent some of his answers are. It's probably good for the Deputy Prime Minister that the laws he is proposing won't reflect his own birth country, or the dual citizenship that he has with New Zealand. I guess it's a bit ironic that we're debating toughening up the citizenship rules on a date that the Deputy Prime Minister of this country can't tell us for sure whether he's a dual citizen or not.

This is the nature of this government—they'll go out there, they'll divide our communities, they'll create wedges, they'll say that you are worthy of Australian citizenship and you are not, without checking their own ranks to clarify whether they satisfy the rules of our constitution. It does make you ponder and question just what they are up to and why they are leading this debate in this way in our country. The citizenship test that the government is proposing, the requirement of English being at university level, seeks to divide those who choose our country to settle.

I mentioned at the beginning of my contribution about the citizenship ceremonies that we have in Bendigo. In the last five years there has been remarkable change in who is becoming Australian citizens and taking the pledge. The Australian Bureau of Statistics just recently released the stats for Bendigo. They really speak for themselves. About 15 per cent of the people recently arrived in Bendigo are from India, 11 per cent are from Myanmar, just under 10 per cent are from Thailand, about 8.3 per cent are from England and just over seven per cent are from the Philippines. That is also reflected in who is becoming Australian citizens and who is taking the pledge at our citizenship ceremonies. Take Myanmar. We are a region which has welcomed Karen refugees, people who were stateless until they became Australian citizens. The first elections they voted in as a people were Australian elections. Many of them grew up in refugee camps. Many of them have moved here and settled here. Their children who go to school here have quite a good grasp of English—and this is such a common story here in this country—but many of them wanting to become Australian citizens still struggle with English. They are attending their TAFE courses, but, as others have said, they get about 500 hours as part of their resettlement services.

Many of them seek to work. They work in food processing, which is big in our part of the world. They work for Moromack's chicken. They work for Hazeldene's Chicken. They work in abattoirs. They work on farms. They are part of our agricultural workforce. They work hard. But this government is saying they shouldn't qualify as Australian citizens, as they wouldn't be able to pass these stringent English tests. I find, as many find, that that is quite a slap in the face, and not what we do in Australia.

A lot of the Indian and Pakistani migrants in Bendigo would pass this test because they came here as skilled migrants. They are our doctors, our nurses and our engineers. They also contribute to our society. But what is so heartbreaking about what the government is putting forward is that it is pitting one group of migrants, permanent residents, against another, and creating a second tier, a second class, within our society, which goes against Australian values and against the commitment in the pledge we make to each other. To say that people in Bendigo who are of Myanmar or Karen birth are lesser people and less worthy of Australian citizenship than those from India and Pakistan is wrong. To say that a dyslexic mechanic who arrives in Australia doesn't even have to sit the test, but a Karen person does, is wrong. That is one of the reasons why we stand opposed to this.

It's disappointing to hear some of the contributions from those opposite, who say that that's just not true—that we're scaremongering. They should read what is being proposed. They should ask migration experts about what is being proposed. They should talk to academics to understand that exactly what their minister is putting forward is to create that second tier.

It is elitist to say you must have a university degree level of English to qualify for Australian citizenship. There are lots of people in central Victoria and Bendigo who don't have that level of qualification; are we saying they are now less of an Australian citizen because they don't have it? Is that the path down which the government wishes to take us? If that's the requirement for people who are migrants wanting to become Australian citizens, who's next? Is it the rest of us? We start to get to a place where the government is suggesting there are two classes of Australian in this country. It is really alarming that this is the direction that this government is going in.

One of the other comments that were made on Thursday afternoon, towards the end of the sitting day, was by my colleague the member for Wakefield, who was talking about how the Snowy Mountains scheme was built by so many migrants of Italian and Greek heritage, who moved to this country and helped build this critical infrastructure, and how we should recognise that contribution: they're Australians, like the rest of us, and should be embraced that way. The member for Hughes was heckling, saying, 'Don't you tell me about the Snowy scheme. My grandfather was involved. He was the commissioner of the project.' I think that kind of statement really sums up the disconnect between those on the government benches and those on this side. Yes, he was a commissioner. That means wealth and education at university level. So the person directing the project can be an Australian citizen, but those who are doing the actual work don't qualify. Is that what they're really suggesting—that level of elitism? That is the crux of what is being proposed, and a way in which the government is creating two classes within our society.

The Values Statement, too, is something where the government is suggesting that people who take the step to become citizens currently don't commit to our values. They do, and anybody who's been to a citizenship ceremony knows that, because of the pledge which people take when they stand on their feet:

From this time forward, under God,

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,

whose democratic beliefs I share,

whose rights and liberties I respect, and

whose laws I will uphold and obey.

This is what they commit to when they stand up in that ceremony. The statements that are read by the immigration minister, by those conducting the ceremony, talk about Australian values. We already require that of people becoming Australian citizens. The theatre that the government and the immigration minister are presenting around this is incredibly misleading to our community. To go out there and suggest that people taking the step to become Australian citizens don't already commit to Australian values is wrong. Australia is this wonderful country of many cultures woven together to make the Australian culture. We say to people when they come here: share your stories, share your culture, enrich and share your values. It's something that has made us who we are today as a modern Australia. Whether you're our First Australians or our most recently arrived migrant Australians, we've all come together to form that rich tapestry of who we are. We should stare down the government and their attempts to divide us and our country in this way.

In Bendigo, we know what happens when people try to use race to divide our town. It was not that long ago that we had people coming into our town and trying to say that our local Bendigo Muslim community could not build a mosque in our town. Our council supported it, the vast majority of our community supported it, but some outsiders came in to say that it was un-Australian. They are wrong. It is very Australian to embrace and share your religion. This government is trying to enforce their view on what it means to be Australian in other ways. In this proposal they've changed the wait period for how long somebody needs to be living in Australia before they can apply for citizenship. A number of people living in Bendigo have been caught up in that proposal: people who moved to Australia to be our doctors and nurses at Bendigo Health, and people who moved to Australia to work at Thales, which manufactures the Bushmaster and the Hawkei. These are people contributing towards our society, and to change the rules on them at this stage of the game is unfair.

Finally, my parents both did become naturalised, like so many people who share a similar story. I was eight at the time, the oldest of three girls. I can remember it quite well, because it was in 1998, a period when Australia really encouraged everybody to take that step, even though, because they came from England, they had voting rights and would one day qualify for the pension. It was a real renewed push in our country to demonstrate how multicultural we were: whilst we might have been born in different countries, we've all come together here to really be Australian, to share our culture and to help build this great nation.

The diversity of people on the stage back then is similar to the diversity of people becoming Australian citizens today. Citizenship is something that we should celebrate. We should be honoured that so many choose our country to settle and to become Australian citizens. We should not allow the minister to bully us and we should not let this issue divide the country, particularly given it is a ministry and a government who can't work out their own citizenships. With so many of them referring themselves to the High Court, you wonder why they continue to set the bar higher for others wanting to become Australian citizens. I urge those opposite to read again and think about again what they've put before the House.

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