Category Archives: Australian citizenship

Convicted Melbourne terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika to be released from prison

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Electronic monitoring and rules on who he can associate with will be imposed by Victorian supreme court

Convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika is set to be released from prison within hours and placed on an extended supervision order that will force him to comply with 30 conditions, including electronic monitoring.

The Victorian supreme court heard on Tuesday that Benbrika would be released later on Tuesday – after spending nearly 20 years behind bars – after the order was finalised.

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More than 15,000 New Zealanders apply for Australian citizenship in six weeks

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About 375 New Zealanders a day have applied since new rules came into effect on 1 July giving them a faster pathway to citizenship

More than 15,000 New Zealanders have applied for Australian citizenship since the government opened a new route to citizenship last month, a rate of about 375 a day.

Of this group, about 500 have already passed a citizenship test and will become Australian citizens at ceremonies around the country soon.

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Australia must rescue citizens from ‘dire’ Syrian detention camps, Red Cross says

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Global director general says ‘state of in-limbo cannot last longer’, with about 40 citizens still believed to be detained indefinitely

Australia and other countries must continue to rescue their citizens from “dire” conditions in camps in north-eastern Syria, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.

The global director general of the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation, Robert Mardini, said the “state of in-limbo cannot last longer”.

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Australian government overturns decision to cancel citizenship of man on death row in Iraq

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Home affairs tells Ahmad Merhi’s lawyer the law used to strip him of Australian citizenship was invalid with almost 20 other cancellations also voided

The Department of Home Affairs has overturned a decision to cancel the citizenship of a former Sydney man on death row in Iraq after it ruled the law used to strip him of his Australian citizenship was invalid.

The department has now revealed that 18 other Australians had their citizenship illegally revoked.

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Australia to launch rescue mission for women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps

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Exclusive: More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children related to Islamic State combatants held in al-Hawl And Roj camps

The Australian government is preparing to launch a mission to rescue dozens of Australian women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps.

More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children – the widows, sons and daughters of slain or jailed Islamic State combatants – remain within the al-Hol and Roj detention camps in north-east Syria.

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Western Australian Liberal senator Ben Small resigns over dual citizenship

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Small breached section 44 of the Australian constitution by also holding New Zealand citizenship, but still plans to contest the upcoming election

Western Australian Liberal senator Ben Small has been forced to resign due to his New Zealand heritage, the latest victim of the section 44 constitutional requirements, but has pledged to stand again at the looming election.

Small released a statement on Friday saying he had written to the Senate president to advise him he was resigning as a senator for WA.

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High court rules Aboriginal Australians are not ‘aliens’ under the constitution and cannot be deported

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The four-to-three split decision giving Aboriginal Australians special status is a major defeat for the deportation powers of the home affairs department

The high court has decided that Aboriginal Australians are not aliens for the purpose of the constitution, a major defeat for the deportation powers of Peter Dutton’s home affairs department and a significant development in the rights of Indigenous Australians.

In a four-to-three split decision on Tuesday the high court ruled that Aboriginal people with sufficient connection to traditional societies cannot be aliens, giving them a special status in Australian constitutional law likely to have ramifications far beyond existing native title law.

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Birth of boy sparks renewed calls to rescue Australians in Syria’s squalid al-Hawl camp

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Brutal winter, poor healthcare and limited food raises fears for welfare of infant, born to Sydney woman Rayan Hamdoush

An Australian woman has given birth to a baby boy in the al-Hawl camp in Syria, prompting revived calls for Australia to rescue 67 nationals still held in the camp.

Rayan Hamdoush, 24, from western Sydney, was pregnant when she entered al-Hawl. She gave birth to the boy on 30 November. The boy’s father, Samer Hajj Obeid, also from Sydney, is missing.

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Questions raised over Liberal candidate Mina Zaki and Labor’s Sharyn Morrow

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Zaki’s renunciation of her Afghan citizenship may be incomplete and Morrow faces claims she posted anti-asylum seeker posts online

The Liberal candidate for Canberra, Mina Zaki, may be ineligible to sit in parliament because the renunciation of her Afghan citizenship appears to be incomplete.

And the Labor party is facing some pressure to disendorse its candidate for the Western Australia seat of Durack, Sharyn Morrow, over alleged anti-asylum seeker posts on social media.

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Medical evacuation bill still alive with Phelps open to amendments – politics live

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Key crossbencher Kerryn Phelps indicates she would consider Labor’s changes to the medevac legislation. All the day’s events, live

The PMO has released the transcript of Scott Morrison’s doorstop this morning:

JOURNALIST: Prime minister, if you lose the medevac bill today, why should you not drive to Government House and call an election?

You may remember from Luke’s report yesterday, that David de Garis declined to answer how he found out about the AWU raid. Looks like shiz is about to get reeeal interesting in the federal court.

Justice Bromberg has ruled Michaelia Cash's former media adviser David De Garis will have to give evidence about who tipped him off that federal police were set to raid the AWU's offices. #auspol

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Councils ask Morrison to pay for citizenship ceremonies on 26 January

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PM says ceremonies must be held on Australia Day, but some councils say they are too small, or too hot

The federal government has been told to put its money where its mouth is on the question of Australia Day. Councils are arguing they should be financially compensated if they are forced to hold citizenship ceremonies on 26 January.

A day before he launched a rebrand of his Coalition government, Scott Morrison on Sunday said he was “prime minister for standards” as he spruiked a new rule that would force councils to oversee the ceremonies on Australia Day. The government will also ban “board shorts” and “thongs” from those events.

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