Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Bartlett quite rightly just pointed out, the bulk of the bill we are considering is very good and puts our Australian Citizenship Act on a very good footing; it is just that there are some lingering concerns about particular aspects of it. Indeed, during the committee hearings the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission made the point that they had not been consulted, I believe, prior to the bill being drafted. That surprised me a great deal. They were particularly concerned about the issue of statelessness. Senator Bartlett has quite rightly pointed out some of the difficulties that may arise under this bill.

I would like to hark back to other difficulties that I pointed out during my speech in the second reading debate in relation to people who, through renunciation, lost their citizenship under section 18 of the old bill. While I am on my feet I might also go through a few questions that I have about how the bill, when it is enacted and becomes law, will be dealt with. During the additional estimates we heard stories of a Maltese person who lost their Australian citizenship not under section 18, as most Maltese people do, but under section 17. This is quite a complicated bill and that particular section makes it very complicated, as do issues like statelessness and so on. I am wondering whether increased resources will be made available to the department, particularly in those key overseas locations where a lot of people will apply for or inquire about resumption of citizenship—Malta being one and the United States and Papua New Guinea being others—and what protocols will be in place. For example, will elderly people such as the United States war brides, who are in their 80s or even 90s, be treated as a priority and assisted through the process?

I think it may also assist the process of people assessing whether they themselves or members of their family are eligible under the new citizenship rules if the Australian citizenship instructions, which I understand are currently only available to migration agents, are made more widely available. I understand, of course, that they have to be rewritten to take into account the new rules, but I think it would assist the process greatly if they could be more generally available to the public. There is also the question for people who are already here in Australia under working visas or other arrangements of what arrangements will be made for them to be advised of whether they might be able to take up Australian citizenship or resume their Australian citizenship if they are eligible and how that will come about. I raise these issues at this point hoping that the minister might have some response to them later in the piece.