One law for senators, another for refugees
There are lots of problems with section 44 of the Constitution. Dual citizens should have full democratic rights, including the right to be an elected federal representative.
But when it comes to breaking bureaucratic rules, there is one law for politicians and very different laws for the rest of us.
Like several other politicians, National Party senator Matt Canavan made a bureaucratic boo-boo and didn’t renounce his right to Italian citizenship before standing for election. His initial story was that his mother had set into train a series of unfortunate events in 2006 that culminated in him becoming an Italian citizen. Poor senator Canavan was supposedly none the wiser.
Canavan’s version of events was given a favourable hearing all through the press, until it started to appear that the High Court would become involved. At that point his lawyers issued a new story – that he actually had been an Italian citizen since 1983, and all reference to his mother applying on his behalf disappeared.
Senators can get away with a lot, and lying to the people who elected them seems to be fairly routine – something that is a matter of course for career politicians. But perjury – lying to a court – is a risk they don’t take lightly.
Isn’t it a lovely story? A senator makes an honest oversight that means they have held an extremely lucrative job they quite possibly were never entitled even to apply for. After around a million dollars in salaries and unknown amounts of other perks, the senator fixes the underlying issue by renouncing the dual citizenship. Suddenly everything is all right again. Everyone lives happily ever after, there are kittens and rainbows for all, and the errors are forgiven and forgotten.
Contrast this to the treatment of refugees. The Herald Sun in May reported that almost 100 people have been deported in the last three years because the Department of Immigration “discovered they had provided false identities or ‘materially incorrect information’ in their original visa claims”.
“Legacy caseload” refugees are being forced to fill in the Byzantine mess of “Form 866” before 1 October. Containing around 100 questions, and more than 30 pages long, Form 866 takes experienced migration lawyers more than a day to work through.
Unlike our senator, refugees get only one shot at completing this form. Any information left off cannot be added later, making legal help even more important for refugees – at the same time as legal assistance for refugees has been slashed.
Thousands of these refugees are now stuck in a legal hell, terrified of the consequences of making a mistake or omission on their one shot at Form 866. Even with no allegation of dishonesty, changing their story or making a mistake during this process could doom them to deportation, torture or even death.
But at least the law is fair and forgiving to senators.
