All eyes are on the Australian parliament as the Senate will gather on Tuesday to debate The Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017.
Labor has opposed the proposed changes and said that if the bill is defeated, the Immigration Department must start processing citizenship applications immediately.
The Greens have said they will work with Labor to defeat the citizenship bill when it comes up in parliament.
And now, a day before the senate will debate and decide the fate of the citizenship bill, the Nick Xenophon Team, who holds three crucial votes in the Senate, showed no signs of backing the government’s proposal.
Party’s leader, Nick Xenophon said “our position hasn’t changed” and the government needed to scrap the bill and start again.
On Monday, when parliament resumed for a four-day sitting after a month-long break, Xenophon was quoted as saying by The Guardian, “We can’t support it in its current form. The bill needs to be redrawn.
“We are willing to sit down with the government and work with them, but this legislation has caused a lot of anxiety among ethnic communities around the country, and while I am sure that wasn’t what was intended, it is not something we can support.”
Xenophon party has objected with the bill’s retrospective application as well as the high English requirements.
“The government needs to go back to the drawing board,” he said.
Earlier in September, Nick Xenophon Team’s Senator Stirling Griff said his party will not be supporting the bill's passage through the Parliament.
The bill that has passed the House of Representatives seeks to increase the waiting period for permanent residents for four years, up from the current one year before they can apply for Australian citizenship.
The proposed law will also require migrants to prove they have a competent level of English by achieving a Band 6 score on the International English Language Testing Systems (IELTS).
Members of Indian community in Australia are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the citizenship bill.
33-year-old Tushar Choudhary, who became eligible in June, to apply for citizenship said, hope ‘the bill is defeated’.
Sydney-based lawyer, Atul Vidhata, who has lived in Australia for ten years and has been affected by these proposed changes said, ‘if the bill is rejected it will likely bring a lot of relief to those affected.’
Have you applied for Australian citizenship or affected by the changes to citizenship law? Write to us at Mosiqi.acharya@sbs.com.au
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