Page 2387 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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We could look at the difference between "subsequently granted" and someone who may be a permanent resident but has applied for citizenship. If I said only, "The person is an Australian citizen", that would prevent anybody who has applied for citizenship but has not yet been granted it from becoming a public service officer. There should be only two reasons why that would be withdrawn. The first is that they apply for citizenship, join the public service, and then withdraw their application. That would not be what we want, if we agree that someone should have made the commitment to becoming an Australian citizen. The second point is that they were refused citizenship. I am sure that I do not need to go into the details of why we should not want in the public service someone who has been refused citizenship. It is an important point. We need people who have a commitment that is stronger than that of someone with a lesser commitment. That is the point I make. I commend the amendment to members.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (5.27): The Government will be opposing Mr Stevenson's amendment. I should point out, before I argue for our opposition, that I believe that, at least technically, the words Mr Stevenson has had leave to add to his amendment are nonsensical. I do not mean that in a pejorative sense, but they do not make any sense. If you read the clause, it says that a person shall not be appointed to the service unless the person is an Australian citizen or a permanent resident of Australia. Mr Stevenson's amendment would add the words "who has applied for Australian citizenship which is subsequently granted". It seems to me that the clause as it stands already has a requirement for Australian citizenship at the time of appointment. By saying "which is subsequently granted", Mr Stevenson is implying that the granting must take place before the appointment, and in that case the person is an Australian citizen. I do not understand the point of his added words. I suggest to members that it would not make for a very good Bill if those words were to be supported.
I do not believe that it is necessary to have the requirement that an applicant be a citizen as well as being a permanent resident. Indeed, I believe that it could well be seen as discriminatory if we were to impose that requirement. I understand that the Commonwealth does have such a requirement, but they have their own reasons for doing that and there is no reason why we should slavishly follow what the Commonwealth has done. For instance, they probably have reasons of national security and that sort of thing to consider, which we do not. I understand that most States, in looking at appointments to their public services, do not require citizenship. It appears to be only the Commonwealth that does. I do think that narrowing down a person's ability to apply for a job in that way is needless and could be discriminatory.
There is another reason why I will be opposing Mr Stevenson's amendment. One of the things this Bill does is appoint as officers of the service many hundreds of our continuing employees, so-called. These employees are mostly blue-collar workers and are currently not officers. They are currently treated as second-class citizens. Of course, many of those staff may not be Australian citizens, but it is still my wish to appoint them to our new service. For that reason as well, I oppose Mr Stevenson's amendment.
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