Long-promised changes to Australia's citizenship law came a step closer to implementation with a lengthy debate in the House of Representatives in Canberra on the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005.
The Bill, first introduced into Parliament in November last year after pre-election promises made by the government in July 2004, is aimed at providing solutions to many of the citizenship dilemmas faced by those in Australia's million-strong diaspora, issues on which the Southern Cross Group (SCG) has been working for change since 2000.
The Bill still needs to clear its last stages in the House of Representatives when Parliament resumes at the end of this month and it is hoped it will then be passed by the Senate before Parliament rises for the summer break on December 7. If the legislation is adopted by Parliament this year, it is understood that implementation could occur on Australia Day, January 26. Applications for Australian citizenship under the new legislation will only be possible from the date of implementation.
John MacGregor, SCG Australian coordinator, said: "We are pleased that this legislation has at last come before Parliament for debate. But the SCG is disappointed that the government remains opposed to including a provision in the new legislation that would provide access to Australian citizenship for the overseas-born children of those former Australian citizens who were forced to renounce their Australian citizenship in past years".
The deficit will be particularly hard felt by those in the large Maltese community in Australia and by those Australian-born Maltese now living in Malta and whose children were born after they were forced to renounce their Australian citizenship. Many Australian-born children of Maltese immigrants to Australia in the post-war years were taken back to Malta by their parents while they were youngsters. Until Maltese law was changed in 2000, when these children reached the age of 18 they were required to choose between Maltese and Australian citizenship. Failure to renounce their Australian citizenship under the section 18 renunciation mechanism in the current Australian Citizenship Act 1948 would have had serious social and economic implications for them. Without Maltese citizenship they would not have had access to free education, the right to own property in Malta, or to work in many jobs.
If the Bill is passed in its present form, as expected, Australian-born Maltese will be able to apply to resume their Australian citizenship subject to the sole condition that they are of good character. The SCG has applauded the government on this initiative. However, it notes that about 3,000 children of Australian-born Maltese will not be able to acquire Australian citizenship at the same time as their parents. If they had had an Australian citizen parent at the time of their birth in Malta, they would have been Australian citizens by descent.
This omission in the Bill contrasts sharply with the new provision that will permit the children of Australian citizens who lost their citizenship under the now repealed section 17 of the present law to be granted Australian citizenship, the SCG says. Until 2002, section 17 operated automatically to strip Australian citizenship from those who voluntarily took up citizenship of another country. Children born to those people abroad after they lost Australian citizenship will have access to Australian citizenship under the changes, unlike the children whose parents lost their citizenship under section 18.
The Australian Labour Party has moved an amendment to include the latter group in the Bill, but given the government's majority in both the House and the Senate, such amendment seems unlikely to be adopted in the final legislation.
During the debate in second reading of the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 in the Federal Parliament, in Canberra, the federal member for Prospect (NSW) Chris Bowen said he would like to acknowledge the work of Lawrence Dimech, who lived in his electorate. "He is the president of the Maltese Welfare (NSW) Inc, a very vocal and well-known advocate of the cause of Maltese in Australia and the one who has been very vocal on this Bill and on matters of citizenship generally. I regard him as somewhat of an expert on citizenship given the amount of time he has spent working in the Department of Immigration on citizenship matters."
Mr Bowen also acknowledged the work of the Southern Cross Group, which supports Australian expatriates and promotes their cause in spreading the message.