Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (18:47): I am pleased to rise and speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015. To have Australian citizenship either by birth or by migration to this country is a decision that you would have made by yourself or your parents would have made and it is the equivalent of winning Lotto. We can never take for granted the enormous and wonderful opportunities that are given to everyone who has Australian citizenship. At all times we should talk about the importance of Australian citizenship, the opportunities it provides and why allegiance to our nation is an important factor. Sadly, there are too many in this country who worship the tyranny of political correctness. They like to have some loathing of our nation; they like to mock our traditions and our heritage. They do enormous harm to our nation. One of the threats to this country comes from the radicalisation of people who are actually Australian citizens. What causes that radicalisation? One of the main causes of radicalisation of young people lies in thinking that the Australian nation is not a good nation and thinking that we are somehow a racist nation. When they hear such talk that demonises our country, we need everyone in this parliament to call that language out. Recently the Grand Mufti of Australia issued a very disappointing press release that talked about the causative factors of terrorism; one of those factors is those who loathe this country and who talk our country down. We need to do the opposite: we need to talk up our country for all the things that are good about it. People like to say that we are somehow racist or that we are Islamophobic, but look at the evidence—look at the wonderful achievements of people of the Muslim faith here in Australia. We have Muslim people elected to our parliaments and our local councils. They are elected as mayors and they are elected in areas where the Muslim population is a minority—the non-Muslim majority of those areas have decided that they will elect a Muslim person to represent them. How can that happen when we are a racist country? We have Muslim people who are captains of our industries and who have gone on to be CEOs of our largest corporations. They are elected to our national sporting teams simply on ability and merit. We have Muslim people who are successful entrepreneurs, who have achieved senior ranks in our Defence Force, who have been popular entertainers and commentators in our media. We have had people of the Islamic faith who have won beauty pageants. We cannot have achieved all those things, if at the same time people see that we are racists and Islamophobic. We need to call those things out and we need to say the things that are happening in our nation. We also need to call out people who attack our Defence Force. Our Defence Force should never be described as being involved in 'foreign military interventions'. Our ADF personnel currently in Iraq are there at the request of the legitimate Iraqi government. They are not there for territory or conquest; they are there risking their lives to protect innocent civilians from beheadings and rapes. We should talk up the wonderful contributions of our Defence Force and how they risk their lives to spread peace and democracy in other parts of the world.... For the full speech follow this link: http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansardr/4542f24a-411d-41aa-874c-00a76d8af37f/0191/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

• published: 28 Jan 2016
• views: 11