I also want to emphasise that the act and the bills specifically talk about the reciprocal relationship of rights and obligations. Towards the end of last year, we had a very brief and fairly farcical consultation process around a government discussion paper on the concept of a citizenship test. The Democrats genuinely engaged with that process and put forward a considered submission in what I thought at the time was probably a vain hope. Nonetheless, it was done in the hope that there was going to be genuine debate, that we were going to consider some of these issues as part of a genuine community engagement. It was a vain hope. The process was a political stunt. It was a deliberate, cheap, pathetic wedge. The consultation process was simply a farce to cover the predetermined position of the government to try to bring in a citizenship test, without in any way indicating how there were any current problems, as a way of trying to score some political points to abuse and misuse citizenship.

The interesting thing about that government discussion paper--which I thought was quite poorly written, perhaps reflecting the fact that it was just a short-term political stunt--was that there was a lot of focus on the obligations of citizens and very little on the rights of citizens. I agree that there are mutual obligations, rights and responsibilities, but there is no point trying to emphasise the obligations of people who are becoming citizens to do A, B, C, D and E whilst completely dismissing the rights that attach to citizenship and the obligations of government to ensure that those rights are upheld.

Unfortunately, what we are actually seeing from this government is them ignoring the rights of citizens and, in some cases, actually seeking to take them away. That to me is an indication that if there is any problem with the compact of citizenship it is not with people who are potentially considering becoming Australian citizens; it is with this government and the way they are treating some citizens, the way they are willing to sacrifice people for political advantage and the way they are willing to use citizenship itself as a political football.

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