Morrison, Scott, MP

Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (12:46): I thank members for their contributions to the second reading debate on the Australian Citizenship and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. The purpose of this bill is to support the integrity and effectiveness of the citizenship program by providing a clear legislative framework to underpin the government's policy that Australian citizenship is a privilege which should not be taken lightly. We should not be setting low bars for people who want to become citizens of Australia. There should be a high bar to be a citizen in the greatest immigration country on the planet. If you want to go and become a citizen then the standards are high, and we should always ensure they are kept high, and that is not achieved by becoming complacent about the standards and the administration of those standards. You must be ever-vigilant on these things. The way you invest in the value of citizenship in this country is to invest in its integrity, not just with financial resources but, most importantly, in the laws that underpin its integrity and the measures that are put in place to administer that integrity. What this bill does is strengthen the program's integrity, and it underlines the importance of connection to Australia and improved decision makings to support Australia making better decisions about who gets to become a citizen in the best immigration country on earth. In addressing program integrity, the bill expands the minister's power to revoke citizenship when satisfied that the person became a citizen as a result of fraud or misrepresentation, by allowing revocation without a prior criminal conviction or for fraud. In line with other revocation provisions, the minister must be satisfied that it would be contrary to the public interest for the person to remain a citizen. The bill ensures that all applicants for citizenship must meet the good character requirement, regardless of age. It also promotes consistency by providing that this bar on approval in circumstances related to criminal offence will apply to applicants for citizenship by descent, adoption under the Hague convention on intercountry adoption, and resumption in the same way as it applies to applicants for conferral. In addition, the bill amends the offences provisions to reflect modern sentencing practices. The current offences provisions were largely carried over from the 1948 Citizenship Act—time for an update. The bill amends the power to cancel approval of citizenship by conferral prior to the pledge of commitment being taken to meet current challenges to program integrity. It also extends the maximum period of time where a minister can delay an applicant making the pledge of commitment from 12 months to two years, recognising that investigations into whether there are grounds for cancellation can take longer than 12 months. It creates the time and space for ministers to protect the integrity of citizenship in this country. That is what it is there for. The bill introduces safeguards to the provision giving automatic citizenship to those whose adoptions are finalised in Australia by requiring such adoptions to be commenced before the applicant turns 18. The second theme is the underlying importance of connection to Australia, not just an Australian. The residence requirements are an important way of ensuring that applicants for citizenship by conferral have a significant connection to Australia—the country—to understand what being an Australian means. The bill clarifies a number of aspects concerning these requirements, including the start date for the necessary four-year period of residence and the scope of the ministerial discretion to allow overseas absences to count towards the residence requirement for spouses and de facto partners of Australian citizens. The bill amends the provisions in the act which enable children to acquire citizenship automatically if they are born in Australia and ordinarily resident here until their 10th birthday. The bill also amends the provision giving citizenship to children found abandoned in Australia so that it is consistent with the original policy intent, which is to reflect Australia's international obligations under the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The bill improves the legal position of citizens by descent who are registered as Australian citizens but later found not to have been eligible to be so registered by repealing the automatic loss of citizenship and replacing it with a discretion for the minister to revoke citizenship. This would allow the circumstances of the particular case to be taken into account when deciding if citizenship of such a person should be revoked. The bill improves decision making in a number of ways. The bill proposes to enable the minister to make a legislative instrument to prescribe the holder of a certain visa to be able to apply for citizenship by conferral offshore. It is envisaged that the subclass 102 adoption visa will be prescribed. Children adopted by Australian citizens can sometimes have difficulty acquiring a travel document prior to travel to Australia if they are not yet an Australian citizen. To ensure that the use and disclosure of personal information within the department complies with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988, the bill provides that personal information collected under the Migration Act may be used and disclosed for the purposes of the Australian Citizenship Act, and vice versa. The bill aligns the merits review requirements for conferral applicants aged under 18 with the relevant requirements for citizenship by conferral, to prevent unfounded review applications. On occasion the minister makes personal decisions under the act. The bill makes it clear that the minister can specify that such a decision is made in the public interest and protects these decisions from merits review. Judicial review will remain available. In any judicial review action the court would consider whether or not the power given by the citizenship act had been properly exercised in accordance with the power conferred by this parliament. The bill provides the minister with the power to personally set aside certain decisions of the AAT, if it is in the public interest to do so. Some decisions that have been made by the AAT have led to outcomes that are outside the community standard that citizenship policy is intended to meet. These have included occasions where the AAT has found that people were of good character despite having been convicted of child sexual offences, of manslaughter, of people smuggling or indeed of domestic violence. There should be no excuse for a minister to allow someone to become a citizen in such circumstances. To just blame the tribunal and the courts and say, 'I have no power to deal with that,' should be remedied, and it is being remedied in this bill. Those who oppose this particular measure want to take the easy option. They want to take the light option and not have the accountability of the minister having to decide in circumstances such as these that they would allow one to go through to the keeper with someone of poor character, as has occurred before with people who have been convicted of child sexual offences, domestic violence, manslaughter and people smuggling—just to say that it is all too hard: 'The tribunal said this and there is nothing I can do.' Those who oppose this measure are saying that they do not want to have to make those calls on behalf of the Australian people. If you are not prepared to make that sort of a call as the immigration minister and the minister responsible for citizenship, you have no business applying for the job. That is why I have put these measures in here. These measures are in this bill because the minister, who is accountable to the people of Australia through our democratic process, has a responsibility to make decisions to protect the integrity of citizenship. This government is not going to subcontract that out to someone else. We were elected to deal with those matters and we should hold the accountability of those things very carefully and very responsibly. We must be accountable for the decisions we make on these matters. This is a critical reform and it deserves support. I am surprised that some have considered not supporting the bill for this reason. We will know the opposition's position on that very shortly. But if you are going to be a minister responsible for citizenship then you need to protect it and you need to vote for measures that would enable ministers of either party, of any background, to be able to take the actions the public would expect them to. So, if this bill is opposed and is ultimately not passed, and any future minister who has voted on this bill says, 'There is nothing I can do about it, because I do not have the power,' they have the ability right here and right now to get that power for the minister, whoever they may be, to protect Australian citizenship. We will find out shortly where the Labor Party sits on that matter. The amendments in this bill protect the minster's personal decisions from merits review and allow the minister to set aside decisions of the AAT in certain circumstances. It will bring the minister's powers under the Australian Citizenship Act in line with similar provisions under the Migration Act. So the power created here is no different to the power that is established under the Migration Act in relation to visa on character issues, as well. Why would we have a lower standard, a lower protection, for citizenship than we actually have for visas and permanent residency? Why would we choose to have a lower bar than having the opportunity of a higher bar? This bill is about having a higher bar and we will see where those opposite sit on that question. Finally, the bill provides the minister with the power to make legislative instruments that may cover issues such as the currencies and exchange rates for fee payment, eliminating the need to amend the citizenship regulations every six months. In conclusion I remind members that Australian citizenship is an important common bond for all Australians, whether Australians by birth or by choice, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, and of recent migrant heritages or of generational migration heritage. It lies at the heart of a unified, cohesive and inclusive Australia. Our best defence against foreign or domestic enemies is our social resilience and our cohesion as a country. We are the best immigration country on earth. That is our best defence against those who would seek to undermine the cohesiveness of this society. That cohesiveness is based on the ability to come and make a contribution and not take one or expect one. Citizenship is about signing up to that value to join the generations who have gone before and built this country, going back to Indigenous times. It is saying that by becoming a citizen we are going to inherit their legacy and we are going to continue it. We are going to continue it by continuing to make a contribution for future generations of Australians. The people who sign up to that or have it by birth have a great responsibility. It is up to the government to ensure that the integrity of that great gift, whether we attain it by birth or by oath, is upheld and is protected at every opportunity. That is what this bill does. Citizenship is a unique symbol of formal identification with Australia, acknowledging responsibilities and conferring substantive privileges that allow people to participate fully in our community. These amendments uphold the value of Australian citizenship by preserving the integrity of the program, and those who would oppose it are opposing increasing the integrity and investing in the integrity of this program. These amendments uphold the value of citizenship. They will also ensure the connection between and applicant and Australia, not just an Australian. Helping them to understand the heritage we share as citizens, an inheritance that is ours to steward, to protect and enjoy, as Australians all. I commend the bill to the chamber. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the bill be now read a second time.