Australian PM pressed on citizenship issue

Australian-born Maltese parents took the opportunity of a reception at the Australian High Commissioner on Thursday to press Prime Minister John Howard on the issue of their children's citizenship.

Mr Howard is in Malta for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

About 3,000 children born to Australian-born Maltese parents who had returned to Malta had to renounce their Australian citizenship on their 19th birthday because dual citizenship was banned in Malta up to February 2000.

This meant the children were unable to obtain Australian citizenship by descent because their parents only had Maltese citizenship at the time.

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005, tabled in Parliament in Canberra on November 9, proposes that people who had renounced their citizenship be allowed to resume it.

This, however, does not give their children the right to claim Australian citizenship.

During the reception, Australian-born Maltese Norman Bonello approached Mr Howard and asked him why the Bill in question had not provided a route to Australian citizenship for his children.

Mr Howard responded that such "children" were now in their 20s and 30s. But Mr Bonello, whose two children, Kim and Claire, are aged eight and six respectively, told the Prime Minister this was not the case as the average of these children is 11.

Anne MacGregor, co-founder of the Southern Core Group, a global non-profit volunteer-run advocacy and support organisation for the Australian diaspora, said yesterday that statements such as that made by Mr Howard demonstrated that the Australian government failed to objectively assess demographic information at its disposal on the families affected.

She said that according to SCG records, the youngest child born in Malta to parents who had renounced Australian citizenship was born in July this year. The oldest is 34.

It is calculated that only nine per cent are aged 20 or over. Twenty per cent are under five.

Ms MacGregor said the opposition was moving an amendment proposing citizenship to children of Australian-born Maltese offspring. She urged the Australian government, which had a majority in the House and in the Senate, to change its mind and support the amendment.

Australia, she said, had a falling birth rate and the government was turning its back on these 3,000 children who would have been Australian had their parents not been forced to renounce their Australian citizenship.