Mr BURKE (12:33 PM) —The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005 deal with a number of issues, some of which are not controversial, some of which are very much welcome and some of which, given some recent government amendments, raise deep concerns. The bills were first proposed following the London bombings. When they were introduced to this House, COAG had met and had made a number of statements concerning what I think amounted to a 10-point plan of different antiterrorism measures which the leaders of the governments around Australia, having received the best available intelligence, decided were all issues which the parliaments at state and federal level should enact.

One of those points was to move the time delay for citizenship from two years to three years. Time delay on citizenship is always going to be an issue of balance. There are two competing concerns, both of which matter. The first concern is that citizenship is a way of integrating people into our society, making sure that they do not feel estranged and that at every level they feel part of the Australian community. It is also something that, once confirmed, is a permanent decision that Australia has made and therefore something that we do not want to take lightly.

Having received the best available intelligence at a time of genuine international concern on security, the governments of Australia, including the one represented here and all the state and territory governments, agreed that one of the things that should happen was that the delay for citizenship should be moved from two years to three years. In that context, Labor announced that we would support that change. Two things have happened since then. More than a year passed since this bill went on the Notice Paper before the government bothered to find time to debate it. This is something that was held up in the context of the London bombings as being an important piece of legislation and as being relevant to our national security. It was so important to move the citizenship delay from two years to three years that we have waited more than a year to implement it. Anybody who only had two years of residence in Australia, at the time that we were told this was a national security issue, now has three years anyway. For anybody who was in the situation that the governments of Australia decided was worth pursuing, because of whom the governments thought that as a national security measure we had to go from a two-year delay to a three-year delay, we have delayed the bill anyway.

So, in the context of one of the most frightening international events that we saw in London last year, the government put it on the list. People were sceptical. Some people were sceptical as to whether or not this genuinely was a national security issue but, notwithstanding that, when all the governments of Australia agreed in that context—and it is a matter of balance—Labor was willing to support that bill. In that time, when the government said this was something that had to be done but could not be bothered doing it, 117,000 people have been granted citizenship. I do not know how many of those people would have been caught by the two-year to three-year change—I suspect the government does not know how many people would have been caught by the two-year to three-year change—but, notwithstanding that, it was something that we were told was significant to our national security, it was important enough to put in the 10-point plan and it was important enough to put in the list of things that need to be done; it just was not important enough to do.

Now, a year later, the government has put in an amendment to that bill. An amendment was brought into the House, as I understand it, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, who is sitting opposite, the member for Goldstein. That amendment says: ‘Let’s not go to three years; let’s go to four. Let’s make the change to the delay before somebody can become a citizen—a delay of four years.’ I would love to know how something that was a national security issue, where the government was determined to get the balance just right in a meeting of the leaders of all the governments in Australia, then finds itself being introduced to the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, with a change to that balance from three to four years, not on the advice of the best intelligence available to Australia, not on the advice of a COAG meeting of the leaders of all the governments of Australia, but because a parliamentary secretary reckons it is a good idea. I would love to know—and, curiously enough, none of this has been reported so far—exactly what intelligence briefings were made available to the parliamentary secretary to change part of that 10-point plan. I would love to know—and the parliamentary secretary has made none of these reasons available publicly—why it is that the premiers and the Prime Minister got it wrong a year ago or, if they got it right, whether there is now new intelligence that says the balance should be set somewhere differently.

Was the real reason this amendment was introduced to move it to four years that the government were frustrated that Labor had agreed to three years and they wanted to push that a little bit further until Labor said, ‘Hang on, we cannot support that’? If the latter is what the government are doing—and I suspect it is—then they got their win because we will not go beyond what was nationally agreed to as the right balance in a national security context. We will not agree to four years. If the plan was to get the Labor Party in a position where they were just pushing us too far, they got it. But make no mistake: the reason they had the agreement of three years, and the reason they will not get an agreement from this side of the House in delaying citizenship to four years, is that national security is too important. We are not going to have a situation where you get the most detailed briefing being given to the leaders of all the governments of Australia, where they agree as to where the balance should be struck, and then a parliamentary secretary wanders in and says, ‘Hey, I have a different idea; let’s whack it in.’

I have no doubt that the government has been planning these sorts of changes to a political end for some time. Just before the change was moved to three years, a citizenship ad campaign started to run very suddenly, with a tag-line which I cannot remember seeing previously. It might have been there previously, but I cannot remember seeing it. For years Australian governments of both sides of politics have tried to encourage people to become citizens, but the tag-line at the end of the TV ad changed and became ‘Australian citizenship: it’s never been easier.’ I mentioned to some people up in the press gallery at the time that there was no doubt that the government was about to try to make Australian citizenship harder to attain. That was the only reason to have that tag-line in the TV commercial.

Mr Cadman —And you object to that?

Mr BURKE —Sure enough, the change came, but it came in a context. I say to the member for Mitchell, when he asks if we object to that, it came in a context where we were willing to accept it and accept it absolutely. That was in the context of an agreement on national security. If the national security recommendation from all the governments of Australia after a national security briefing had been for four years, then I suspect we would be in a different situation to that which we are in today. But we are in a situation today where we had an agreement that three years was the right balance. That was promoted by the Prime Minister as part of our response to making sure Australia is safe following the London bombings.

Mr Farmer —Why is it the right balance?

Mr BURKE —We have from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training at the table, ‘Why is it the right balance?’ I was not at that national security briefing—it was the premiers and the Prime Minister—but the person moving this amendment was not there either. On being provided with the best intelligence available, they said that was the right balance. There are times on national security issues when the people who have been given the expert briefings make a call and you look at it and, to the best extent that you are able to exercise your judgement, you go with the call that has been made in the face of the best intelligence. But the intelligence that has moved this amendment has had nothing to do with ASIO briefings, as far as I know, because I am sure that if it was to do with ASIO briefings they would have bothered to revisit the meeting with the premiers and the Prime Minister. I fail to believe—maybe I just have not worked out how this government operate—that even this government would reserve their most informed, high-security intelligence briefings for the parliamentary secretary who has responsibility for citizenship. I find it hard to believe that he would get the information but the premiers and the Prime Minister would not. I find that difficult to believe. If that is how it now operates, then that is a fascinating development in governance in this nation.

When Labor agreed for this bill to be passed off to the Main Committee, we did so in the context that it was noncontroversial, that we were in agreement with the government on these issues and that there were some minor amendments that we would be putting forward. We have a situation now where we will honour the agreement that we previously gave about it going to the Main Committee, but this agreement never would have been given had we known at the time that the government intended to abandon the information that had previously been agreed on nationally—and that is what we are faced with here.

There is much in this bill that is good, and that is why, even though I suspect we will lose in the vote as to whether or not it goes to four years, we will support the bill in its final form. One of the things is that we have a changing concept of how the residency requirements are viewed—and this was something that was discussed in estimates yesterday. Previously, determining length of stay in Australia for eligibility for citizenship would begin at the time you became a permanent resident. Given the number of people who find themselves on temporary visas but well and truly integrated into Australia, the government is now offering a higher level of flexibility in taking those periods into account. On the face of it, that appears to be a sensible move.

We also have some major changes which particularly affect the Maltese community. They are not specific and exclusive to the Maltese community, but there are statelessness issues that I know both the member for Gorton and the member for Prospect will be going into in some detail, where people of Maltese origin who renounced their Australian citizenship—where they were forced to under some previous situations that affect quite specifically this situation—were deemed to have retained their rights to Maltese citizenship rather than having acquired a foreign citizenship. In March 2005, the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee stated that Australian citizenship needed to be more inclusive and that children of people who renounce their citizenship under section 18 should also find themselves eligible for Australian citizenship. The government is going some way to fixing many of these problems. An amendment in detail has been circulated, I understand, which addresses the problem for some of the people caught by the situation affecting the Maltese community. Labor will be moving an amendment which I hope will be acceptable to the government. Labor will also move a second reading amendment, which I will do at the end of my remarks. The Maltese group are by far the largest to be affected by the section 18 rule, but there will also be some from other countries—for example, people from the United States have also found themselves to be affected.

A discussion paper has been put out by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs on a number of issues relating to citizenship. The discussion paper itself does not refer specifically to the four-year change. The four-year change is something that was heralded at the same time as the discussion paper went out, and I have no doubt that the shift to four years is being covered in many of the submissions that are being made following that discussion paper. Sadly, any of that level of consultation proves irrelevant, because the government were able to wait more than a year to implement COAG recommendations but they were not able to wait until the end of their own consultation period to determine whether or not to ignore the security advice and security determinations and go for the shift all the way to four years.

In the context of some of the issues in that discussion paper, a lot has been said about the English language and the importance of people learning it. I would find the government’s conviction on this far more credible if the Howard government had not slashed funds from its migrant English language program, which was revealed in estimates to be to the tune of $10.8 million. When you look at adult English services, which is a significant area for adult migrant English programs, you will find cuts to English language training at the same time as there are massive increases in the number of people seeking and requiring those programs, which makes the government’s commitment to English language seem far more tokenistic than I think people on each side of politics would wish.

From what is currently circulated, it appears that an earlier draft is no longer there. If it is no longer there, I am pleased. I saw an earlier draft of the second set of amendments, the transitional amendments concerning stateless people, but it does not appear to be the version that is now in the House. Given that the government has changed this legislation a number of times, I will refer to the draft now just in case it re-emerges after my speech. The government were intending to have a category of stateless people. The minister would not even have a discretion to allow an applicant to become an Australian citizen, depending on whether or not the applicant had been imprisoned for a period of time under the law of a foreign country. When I saw that amendment I thought it was one of the more extraordinary suggestions I had ever seen from the government. That is not a bad benchmark; there have been a few out there.

But to actually see the government, in amendments that appear to have been withdrawn, put forward that the law of another country and whether or not somebody had been imprisoned by another country would provide a bar on them ever receiving Australian citizenship is, I have to say, deeply offensive. If there is anything that the laws of other countries should not go near and not have any bar on it is Australian citizenship. If we do not own this one, what is the point? The government believes in outsourcing a whole lot of areas, but I do not reckon that we ought to outsource Australian citizenship to some of the worst regimes in the world. Yet we were to have a situation where somebody could have been imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, could come here and apply for Australian citizenship and, depending on the sentence Saddam Hussein had given them, find they were to be barred from Australian citizenship. As I say, that was in an earlier draft. I have asked the clerks for the latest draft circulated in the chamber, and I have been unable to find those sections. I have to say that I really hope those amendments are gone.

Mr Bevis —I am surprised.

Mr BURKE —I certainly hope that we do not see those provisions for stateless persons being introduced at any time. I do not want to see a situation where the law of another country has any bearing whatsoever on Australian citizenship.

We find ourselves supporting the bill. We are not going to be in a situation where we are going to say no to the Maltese community, which has been campaigning for a very long time for a better deal. We think the government can go one step better again and act favourably by supporting the amendment I have foreshadowed. I hope that the government will take that extra step. We believe Australian citizenship is extraordinarily important. We want to make sure we get the balance right and that Australian citizenship is valued for the important step that it is. Rather than seeing citizenship as something to unite, I do not want to see legislation such as this ever being used as some sort of political wedge. If the change to four years had come out of the COAG process, I may have been sceptical about it but Labor would have looked very seriously at whether or not, in the face of the best intelligence, it was a case of getting the balance right. That is where I believe the intelligence on the balance ought to come from. It ought to come from briefings from ASIO, not from briefings from Mark Textor.

Mr Cadman —They’re not in this House.

Mr BURKE —I am not sure whether the member for Mitchell was saying that ASIO is not in this House or that Mark Textor is not in this House. I suspect they are both here very regularly. ASIO is very welcome to provide briefings, information and the best intelligence available, and it should do so. When we get all the governments of Australia agreeing on a recommendation as to where the balance is right, departure from that is a big step and something you do not do lightly. You do not change the balance of national security arrangements simply because some polling or some political edges say it might be a clever thing to do. That is exactly what we are faced with with these amendments. That is why Labor will not support the amendment that changes the period from three years to four years. Eligibility rules and criteria for Australian citizenship are important issues which we argue for in this House.

I might say that Australia has not always been so tight on citizenship. We used not do it as well as we do it now. My seat, the seat of Watson, is named after somebody who was not a citizen. The third Prime Minister of Australia, while we know him in the official records as John Christian Watson, was actually Johan Christian Tanck. He gave a false identity. He was not a citizen of the empire, which you had to be in order to vote. Instead, he gave a false identity which allowed him to vote, to run for parliament and to become Prime Minister. Citizenship then was not done nearly as well as it is done now. While I am pleased that we did have the first Labor Prime Minister in the world, I am sorry that there was a fudging of citizenship at the time to do it. I might add that, had it not happened that way, because his father was German Mr Tanck would have been locked up during the First World War. We deal with citizenship very seriously these days, as we should. Citizenship is part of the essential fabric that makes our nation. It is part of the essential fabric that welcomes people. Those of us who regard this as being the best country in the world know that citizenship rules go with responsibilities and rights in being a part of that important and essential community. It is too important to play games with.

If there is an argument that the premiers and the Prime Minister got it wrong after the London bombings, I want to hear it. If there is an argument that updated security advice says that the 10-point plan that came out of COAG should be changed, I want it to be taken to COAG. What I do not want to see is an appalling display—as though there is a passionate difference between three years and four years and that is enough to abrogate what was clearly a decision taken in a national security context. I am pretty confident that I know where the briefings came from and I am pretty confident that you are more likely to find the director of Crosby Textor than you are to find a director of ASIO behind those briefings. That is not the way to deal with Australian citizenship. I want to see citizenship valued; I want to see it held up. I want to see it as something that people really take notice of. I do not want to see it used as a political game.

I suspect we could have avoided a political game if Labor had simply said that we were not going to support the change to three years. But once the government got a shock and thought, ‘Oh, they’re going to vote for it,’ what did they do? First, they waited. They waited more than 12 months to render the original change, which had been called for in a national security context, almost irrelevant. They said: ‘There have been bombings in London. These are the points that we need to change. Here’s one of them.’ It was not the most important one—I think we all agree with that—and it was not the most urgent one, but surely it was important enough to bother bringing the legislation on for debate. Yet the change from two to three years was so urgent, so important, that more than a year later it has not been voted on in either house of the Australian parliament. So then we get the change to four years. No context and no reasons were given. If the change from two to three years was important, the legislation should have been brought on immediately. Instead, when the government realised they did not have the political wedge that they were hoping for, they turned a blind eye to something that they had proclaimed as an important national security change.

I want to know from someone in the government why this legislation has been lying on the backburner for more than a year. Why go to all the trouble of getting the public servants to draft the legislation and put it together to fix some important problems affecting some communities in Australia and have an amendment which is also featured in our national security priorities to then say, ‘This legislation will be debated the week after next’? It has been listed for the week after next for more than a year. It does not get brought on for debate until the government comes up with an amendment that Labor will not support.

National security is too important; Australian citizenship is too important. The way that the government has handled this undermines the original reasons that were given for it to be introduced. The way that the government is now seeking to amend it undermines the justifications that were given. Labor will not support an amendment that devalues Australian citizenship. Labor will not support an amendment that ignores changes that were given and agreed to by the leaders of every government in this country in a very specific and particular context following the London bombings.

The government might think that it is fun to play games with those issues but we do not and will not. Had we known at the time we agreed to send the debate to the Main Committee instead of this chamber that this amendment was going to be there, we would have looked at it quite differently. Unlike the government’s attitude to COAG, we view an agreement as an agreement and therefore will continue to allow and not object to it going to the Main Committee. But the government should make no mistake: we oppose the change from three to four years. We will not see a national security agreement undermined because the former national secretary of the Liberal Party thinks there is a political edge in doing so. I hope that the final form of the bill is as it is now, with our amendment, and not in the form that the government proposes. I move:

I would like to commend the bill in its full form to the House. It is not all bad; there is enough in there that we will make sure we support it in whatever its final form is, but I certainly hope its final form does the right thing by the Maltese community and that the bill in its final form does not undermine the national security agreements of last year.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. IR Causley)—Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Bevis —I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.