Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I From Subject to Citizen 1901–1996
- Part II Discourses of Exclusion
- 5 Discourses of Exclusion, Silencing the Migrant Voice
- 6 Aborigines and Citizenship: Discourses of Exclusion
- Part III The Active Citizen and Beyond
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
5 - Discourses of Exclusion, Silencing the Migrant Voice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I From Subject to Citizen 1901–1996
- Part II Discourses of Exclusion
- 5 Discourses of Exclusion, Silencing the Migrant Voice
- 6 Aborigines and Citizenship: Discourses of Exclusion
- Part III The Active Citizen and Beyond
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The old legal doctrine of once a migrant always a migrant was replaced by a new doctrine of once an Australian always an Australian.
Gough Whitlam, 1980The Migration Act (1958) provides for the deportation of permanent residents who, in their first ten years of residence, commit an offence which results in a sentence of imprisonment for at least one year. Deportation is not mandatory in these circumstances, but is a matter for the exercise of the personal discretion of the Minister, or his or her delegate … The Act also provides for power to cancel visas on character grounds. The Minister may decide that a person is not of good character on the basis of his/her past criminal conduct or general conduct, or their association with another person, group or organisation reasonably believed to be involved in criminal conduct, or their association with another person, group or organisation reasonably believed to be involved in criminal conduct.
The Hon. Peter Baldwin, Minister for Social Security, 1995It is clear that the demand – common to all nation-states – that someone ‘belong’ to the nation before that person is given the rights of a citizen – has become less and less exclusive over the half century since the first Australian Nationality and Citizenship Act of 1948. This half-secular trend is true despite its reversal since 1983 and, particularly, since the term of the Keating Labor government.
But the story of Australian citizenship does not end with a study of that Act or matters referred to as citizenship. Citizenship and migration have always been confused in Australian history.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- From Subject to CitizenAustralian Citizenship in the Twentieth Century, pp. 149 - 187Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997