INTRODUCTION
After the Prime Minister delivered his National Security Statement outlining the Government’s response to the Review of Australia’s Counter-Terrorism Machinery for a Safer Australia on 23 February 2015 questions were raised on the available methods to face the finding of the review.
The Review found that the terrorist threat in Australia is rising, specifically that the number of foreign fighters, potential terrorists and supporters for extremists were increasing.
From this came the proposal, by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, to strip dual nationals of their passports in May and thus the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015- ‘The Bill’ has been a matter of constitutional debate.
Astonishing, three-quarters
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CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR GRANTING CITIZENSHIP
The Commonwealth Constitution exists for the Australian community as a foundation document to serve its members ‘the people of the Commonwealth’. Yet, it has been deplored that the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia makes no direct reference to Australian citizenship or to whom these people are and how can they be identified. It has no definition on what group of people are citizens, how it is obtained, or even a comprehensible head of power for ‘citizenship’.
No constitutional provisions give direct support to citizenship laws. Yet, it has been argued that there may be an implied constitutional concept of Australian citizenship as inherent in the structure of the Constitution. On the same basis of the existence of implied freedom of political communication and discussions where Brennan CJ stated, ‘[i]mplications are not devised by the judiciary; they exist in the text and structure of the Constitution and are revealed or uncovered by judicial
Vickie Lee Roach was a prisoner whose ability to vote had been taken away by Commonwealth legislation. She argued that the legislation breached her constitutional rights and argued her case in the High Court. Roach’s disqualification from voting violated both the Australian Constitution’s requirement that parliament be “directly chosen by the people” (s7 and s24) and the Constitution’s implied freedom of political communication. The constitutional phrase ‘the people’ was intended to be as broad
Constitutional Recognition is about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wanting to be recognised in the Australian Constitution. As the first people in our nation, they should be recognised and treated as equals. The Constitution is the founding legal document of our nation. It sets out the rules of Parliament and how lawmakers, government and courts operate. The Constitution was approved at Referendum by the people in the Australian Colonies between 1898 and 1900 and came into effect on the 1st of January 1901.
The referendum campaign effectively focused public attention on the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were second class citizens with all sorts of limitations - legislative and social - on their lives. This decade-long campaign to change the Constitution came to symbolise the broader struggle for justice being fought during these years. Activists presented the case for a Commonwealth government
Citizenship laws are laws that state how Australian are considered a citizen, their rights, and responsibilities and how they are meant to be treated. In 1901 when the Constitution was first written at first, Indigenous citizens of Australia, women, and immigrants didn't have the rights as they have today. Other laws were passed and changes to the Constitution was made, they were given these rights through these things.
The inherent malleability of section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution, also known as the ‘race power’, suggests the continuing historical and institutional racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. To overcome discriminatory laws to be passed against Indigenous Australians and to allow the advancement of their situation, it is necessary to amend the race power. This article will propose the amendment of s 51(xxvi) to only allow beneficial laws to be passed with regards to Indigenous Australians, the replacement of s 51(xxvi) with an anti-discrimination power and the replacement of s 51(xxvi) with a new head of power with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. These proposals will be analysed considering the judgements in Kartinyeri v Commonwealth and the recommendations made by the Referendum Council.
individuals who are not Australian residents and don't have consent to be in the nation) to be
This article speaks of The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have rejecting the idea of constitutional recognition at the Uluru convention held recently and they push for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice in the Australian Parliament and a commission that will hopefully lead to a treaty. More than 250 community leaders came together for the Uluru conference in discussing the future and what seemed to be the biggest topic, changes made in recognizing the Aboriginal and Toress Strait Islander people in the Australian constitution. Per the article, The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have rejected the idea of constitutional recognition and will instead push for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous
The 1948 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting decided to make major changes in nationality laws throughout the Commonwealth, following Canada's decision to enact its Canadian citizenship law in 1946. Until then all Commonwealth countries, with the exception of the Irish Free State, had a single nationality status of British subject. It was decided at that conference that the United Kingdom and the self-governing dominions would each adopt a separate national citizenship, while retaining the common status of British subject. The Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, which came into force on 26 January 1949, gave effect to that arrangement and created the concept of Australian nationality while continuing to be British subjects. However,
Australia should relinquish the British monarchy and become a republic. This advancement is crucial to establishing Australia’s independence from Britain which reflects on the ability to maintain a tenacious government rule. After almost 230 years under the watchful eye of the British head of state and Queen Elizabeth II, it is time for Australia to demonstrate its self-sufficiency from the British by instituting a republic government (Lewis, Balderstone and Bowman, 2006). Additionally, the monarchy does not reflect the Australian values of equality as the Australian head of state is selected based on hereditary male primogeniture and with Catholics being entirely unqualified. An Australian republic is crucial to involve citizens in their
Law enforcement response to counter-terrorism fundamentally changed as a result of the unprecedented events of September 11th 2001 in New York and Washington (Kaldas, 2002, p61-62). This essay will examine how law enforcement has evolved in response to the changing nature of terrorism, with an emphasis on how this has impacted Australia. An analysis of arrests and subsequent
This has come from the Australian community and international human rights monitors who have stated that “There are still areas in which the domestic legal system does not provide an effective remedy to persons whose rights under the [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] have been violated … [Australia] should take measures to give effect to all Covenant rights and freedoms.” There hasn’t only been a recent push for a Bill of Rights, Former Chief Justice Sir Anthony Mason wrote in 1997 that “Australia's adoption of a Bill of Rights would bring Australia in from the cold, so to speak, and make directly applicable the human rights jurisprudence which has developed internationally and elsewhere. That is an important consideration in that our isolation from that jurisprudence means that we do not have what is a vital component of other constitutional and legal systems, a component which has a significant impact on culture and thought, and is an important ingredient in the emerging world order that is reducing the effective choices open to the nation state”. Brian Galligan who is an academic expert on citizenship stated that “the old confidence in the effectiveness of parliamentary responsible government and the common law for protecting human rights has been undermined by more realistic accounts of the weakness of parliament and the increasingly residual domain of common law compared with the plethora of statutory laws.” The answer to whether Australia needs to adopt a Bill of Rights in order to protect Australian citizens is simple… yes and
In essence, this means that the government still has power to prohibit entire races from voting in elections. In an interview of Marcia Langdon, widely accredited Aboriginal Historian, conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald, Marcia stated that in order for our nation to move forward, section 25, a 19th century document, should be deleted as " because it looks racist and could well be racist - and put in a provision that guarantees no racial discrimination by the Parliament or by governments." (*interview). Even though rights for Indigenous People have changed, a similar treatment is happening to asylum seekers coming to Australia in search of security. Their movements, actions, freedom, etc. Is all being controlled by governments while they are not allowed out of specialised Detention Centres. This treatment of refugees and the treatment of Aboriginal people put Australia as one of the top countries of human rights violators (Healey, 2000). The 1967 referendum did indeed mark to the Aboriginal people that times were changing, but Australia still has a long way to go in terms of fixing
On October 26th Barnaby Joyce, Australia’s prime minister, lost his seat for “allegedly” being a New Zealander. Later it was confirmed that he was. Joyce states that he “had no reason to believe he was a citizen of any other country”. This took place in Sydney, Australia. The problem with this situation is that “in section 44 of the country’s constitution” it says that you cannot be a citizen of any other country but Australia in order to be part of the country’s government. This affects many people including the citizens of Australia and their constitution. The constitution could be changed in order for this controversy to be ended. Also because this is 2017 and in Australia “a quarter of Australia's population was born overseas”. If the constitution
Identify and investigate a contemporary law reform issue- In the past few years there have been Australians travelling to countries mainly Syria and Iraq to go and fight alongside the Islamic State ISIS) the number of Australians have increased. These Australians are known as Australian Jihadists’, Many of the Jihadists’ that go forth and fight for ISIS go with fixed ideas as to what is will be like, but when the Australians arrive it is nothing as like they imagine nor anticipated. A number of these Australians realise their mistakes and they attempt to return back into the country. Due to the number of Jihadists’ the Australian government more specifically Peter Dutton the Minister of immigration has introduced a parliament bill to Strip away Australians of their Dual nationals of citizenship, with this law Peter believes this will stop Australians flying to Syria to fight and think they can come back into Australia. This bill is still in progress and has not been confirmed yet but it is set to pass but with significant changes.
Terrorism poses a serious security challenge to the Australia and globally as it prevalence has increased over a decade although less attacks occur in the Western nations. The purpose of this assignment is to examine what trends and terrorist tactics are evident internationally over the past 5 years and how Australia responded to these trends.