The Southern Cross Group [SCG] is an advocacy group for the Australian Diaspora. The Citizen Bill affects diasporans very closely, exposed as they are to the coal-face of nation-state visas, residency and citizenship demands. The Southern Cross Group recently sent out an email with information on the Citizen Bill and urging diasporans to make submissions to the Senate Inquiry.

The Southern Cross Group [SCG] is volunteer non-profit organisation for the purpose of advocacy and support of the Australian Diaspora. Since the Australian Diaspora is over 1 million people at any one time and increasing in number and wealth, it would be expected that the diaspora advocacy groups would be growing in political influence. This doesn't seem to be the case. Made more surprising by the turgid nature of the diaspora which constantly has Australians leaving and returning.

I am on the Southern Cross Group's unobtrusive and low volume mailing list. Recently there was an email sent out with information on the citizen bill, and the reminder that public submissions for the Senate Inquiry ended on January 16th, 2006.

The Southern Cross Group writes on the bill;

Along with the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005, the Citizenship Bill will replace the Australian Citizenship Act 1948. It contains many of the citizenship reforms lobbied for by the SCG over several years on behalf of the Australian diaspora.

Key and very positive changes for those in the Australian community overseas include a simplified route to the resumption of citizenship lost on the acquisition of another citizenship before 4 April 2002 under the old Section 17. In addition, those who formally renounced under Section 18 of the Australian Citizenship Act 1948 in order to keep another citizenship in adulthood will be able to apply to resume their citizenship for the first time. The fundamental requirement for resumption will be that the person is of good character.

Further, certain people born overseas to Australian citizen parents who do not presently qualify to be Australian citizens by descent will be given access to Australian citizenship.

The first paragraph is interesting. It appears the SCG has had an influence on the bill. Despite their optimism, the Southern Cross Group identifies one area which they see remain an issue to diasporans;

Of greatest concern is the fact that children born overseas to Australian-born individuals after their formal renunciation of Australian citizenship under the current Section 18 are not being provided with access to Australian citizenship. In particular, this affects approximately 3000 children (average age of 10½) of some 2000 Australian-born people in Malta. If these children had had an Australian-citizen parent at the time of their birth, they would have been Australian citizens by descent.

More information on the Southern Cross Group's reaction and description of the Citizen bill is on their website .

A quick MLP; The Constitution of the United State of America and Confederate States of America Compared. - we touched on confederacy in a previous article; News blogs as political agenda-setters - includes SSR in its study.

I think the Phillipps' paper was before SSR put the Articles and Rafferty's onto the front page. Prior to that only articles were front paged. Under the SSR convention the Articles are more magazine like, while the Rafferty's are the blog or diary section.

A few more with a self-contained quote;

• Overseas Australians Will Suffer at Next Election [pdf] from the Southern Cross Group.

  Eligible voters outside Australia when the next election is called will run a strong risk of being disenfranchised if their enrolment details are not in order with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) before the election announcement.

• Buy F-22 Raptors or face air gap: Beazley from The Australian.

  It's a very serious situation. A big capability gap is building up now - Australia versus the region, we have always enjoyed technological superiority. We are now about to lose it.

• Brendan Nelson is ticked off at Boeing for being 12 months late with the Wedgetail project and Donald Rumsfield said something to the effect that technology transfers for the JSF had been worked out, or were in the process of being worked out.
• Why Blogs Work from Rusty Elliot-Harold.

  The beauty of the Web is that there's no visible hierarchy to explore. That's why the Web works for readers. They just follow links and search. They don't have to think about hierarchies of sites. Web developers tend to lose sight of this simple fact because we do have to think about the hierarchy of a site. We even design sites with hierarchies and provide site maps that lay out the hierarchies, and then wonder why nobody uses them. However to a typical reader, the Web isn't a hierarchy, never has been, and never will be. Most importantly they don't want it to be. They don't think in hierarchies.

  What have we traditionally asked someone who wanted to publish on the Web to do? Design a hierarchy. We've taken the one thing that is most confusing to end users in desktop computers and transplanted it onto the network.

• Let us invent human rights from the Jakarta Post.

  The process of inventing "human rights" and "crimes against humanity" in this country appears to be quite premature, as the general sentiment among politicians is to "forgive Soeharto, but get back the riches he had stolen from the nation."

  To focus on Soeharto's riches is to miss out on a momentous opportunity to have those useful Enlightenment concepts -- human rights, human dignity, and crimes against humanity -- take root in Indonesia. The trial of Soeharto, if it ever happens, should not be in order to get back what he allegedly stole. It should first and foremost be over the crimes he committed against humanity, against communist party members and their descendants, against the Acehnese, the Papuans, the East Timorese, the Muslims, or the men in the street with tattoos.

The Southern Cross Group emailed out a reminder to diasporans to make sure they are on the electoral roll early this year due to the changes in the Electoral Act last year which closes the rolls immediately after an election writ is issued.

From the email:

If you are not on the electoral roll, and need to enrol afresh, the rolls will close at 8 pm on the day on which the writ is issued for the election. The writ is usually issued the day the Prime Minister calls the election or the very next day.

If you are currently enrolled, but need to change your details with the Australian Electoral Commission, the rolls will close at 8 pm Australian time on the third working day after the writ is issued.

In the last election, 83,000 first-time voters enrolled in the first week after the election was called. Hundreds of thousands more registered at their new address, including many overseas Australians. But this time they won't get that chance.

Their email has a link to getup.org.au to gather signatures to have this law repealed. I do not think this is a good law, every opportunity should be given to anyone above the age of reason and under the jurisdiction of the government to be on the electoral roll. I think this law is needlessly discriminative and does not have suitable justification.

The diaspora have a tough time of it anyway, getting kicked off the rolls after three years if they skip a re-enrollment. Though this seems to be an archaic law that has never been updated to meet the changing nature of the modern diaspora.

cam

I received a media release from the Southern Cross Group in my inbox this evening. The media release is titled: Overseas Australians Should Enrol to Vote Now [pdf]. It is a reminder for diasporans that the Electoral Act has changed and the diasporans need to enrol each year to remain on the electoral roll. The AEC can strike a diasporan off if they miss voting in an election.

From the media release:

Jacqui Mowbray, spokeswoman for the SCG in Sydney, said that 2006 changes to the closing date for the electoral roll, coupled with limitations in the law on enrolling from abroad, meant that many Australian expats who had left Australia in recent years faced a very real prospect that inaction on their part would lead to them becoming disenfranchised for their entire sojourn abroad.

"Australians overseas must organise their electoral enrolment now, and not wait until the Prime Minister calls the election", she said. "The old seven day window between the calling of the election and the closing of the electoral roll is gone. Once the election is announced, the roll will close almost immediately."

The release contains some interesting statistics too. The SCG estimates that nearly five hundred thousand, or half, of the Australian diaspora are disenfranchised because the electoral act prevents them from re-enrolling. In addition there are low levels of voting by diasporans:

In the 2004 election, only 68,544 votes were issued by overseas posts. In 2001, the figure was 63,016, and in 1998, 65,086. In 1999, only 57,955 votes were issued overseas for the referendum on the Republic.

It is not compulsory for diasporans to vote. I can understand a level of apathy from diasporans as the House of Representatives doesn't have the national focus that diasporans would have. Local issues in the electorate would hardly be something a diasporan would gun for. However I can imagine a large level of interest in the Senate. If there was an elected President - a national position - then there may be more interest from the diaspora.