September 09, 2004

citizenship & Australian Constitution

My reason for connecting citizenship with nationality or a national culture is because the Australian Constitution does not define or mention citizenship. Australians are never referred to as citizens in the Constitution, but are referred to as 'people', 'persons', 'electors' and 'subjects of the Queen.'

The foundational principle here is the people of the colonies agreeing to unite in a federal commonwealth under the crown of the UK. It is the consent of the people--their sovereign will---that is the central democratic value. People and person are the central terms of the Australian Constitution.

The only mention of ciitzenship in the Constitution refers to citizens of other countries being precluded from becoming members of the Australian Parliament. The central concern is to exclude. Why so?

I've always regarded the silence about citizenship as a big gap; a flaw in the Australian Constitution. The silence puzzles me because the background debates in the various constitutional conventions talked a lot about citizenship and discussed it extensively.

A suggestion. Exclusion is the key. If citizenship were introduced into the Constitution they would constitutional fathers deal with people of other races, particularly the Chinese and Indian residents who had originated in other British colonies? If they defined "citizens" as subjects of the Queen then not only would Chinese people from Hong Kong be treated differently to those from other parts of China, but those people would also be able to claim citizenship of the Commonwealth.

Asiatics were not wanted in Australia. The Constitution is premised on the states right to exclude aliens.

The sentiments expressed in the Constitutional Convention concerning the Chinese and other non-British immigrants were the result of half a century of growing concerns over the presence of Chinese immigrants in the colonies. The views of the 19th century have had, and continue to have, a significant influence on our understanding of citizenship as exclusion.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at September 9, 2004 09:45 AM | TrackBack
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