MARK COLVIN: Police, Customs and Immigration have intercepted a flotilla of dinghies carrying more than a hundred people in the Torres Strait, those on board had come from Papua New Guinea.
They’re trying to reclaim Australian citizenship, which they say was illegally taken from them when PNG became independent in 1975.
Shane McLeod reports.
SHANE MCLEOD: Twelve dinghies set off from the Papua New Guinea island of Daru.
On board were more than one hundred people, members of a group known as the Papua Australia Plaintiff United Affiliates, or PAPUA. The group’s founder, Jonathan Baure, explained earlier this week they claim to be Australian citizens.
JONATHAN BAURE: We were born Australian citizens, when Papua was part of Australia. Our claims to citizenship is that we never renounced it or made a declaration of loyalty to PNG.
SHANE MCLEOD: But Australia’s Government doesn’t agree. The flotilla was intercepted yesterday afternoon. Queensland Police and Customs and Immigration officials are working to transfer those on board to Horn Island in the Torres Strait.
Sandi Logan is spokesman for the Immigration Department.
SANDI LOGAN: They will be, at this stage, detained. They do not appear to have any lawful reason for having entered Australian waters.
SHANE MCLEOD: And the Government’s position is unlikely to change.
Kim Rubenstein is the Director of the Centre for International and Public Law at the Australian National University in Canberra.
KIM RUBENSTEIN: In 1975, when the Papua New Guinean dependence Act came into force, those Papuans who did not have real Australian citizenship would lose their Australian citizenship. And real Australian citizenship was effectively any Papuan who had rights of entry to mainland Australia. Because even though those Papuans were Australian citizens, the Migration Act throughout that period actually restricted those Australian citizens from residence in mainland Australia.
SHANE MCLEOD: The laws were put to the test in a 2005 case before the High Court.
KIM RUBENSTEIN: But the High Court unanimously found against the claimants. It was very interesting from a jurisprudential point of view of the other Australian citizens, in terms of the power of the Commonwealth to strip people of their Australian citizenship. But in effect they said that those Papuans were a particular case. They weren’t real Australian citizens, and therefore it was a valid piece of legislation and those people could no longer be recognised as Australian citizens.
SHANE MCLEOD: Sandi Logan says many of those being taken to Horn Island know the state of the law, and can make their claims through proper channels.
SANDI LOGAN: This is not the first time that they have set out and unlawfully entered Australian waters in recent years. But this is certainly a larger group than normal, and frankly it’s tying up valuable resources in the Torres Strait involving Customs, involving Queensland Police and, of course, Immigration officials and we would much rather that commonsense prevailed and they understood that there is a process that anyone can follow, whether they are Papua New Guinean nationals or otherwise who feel that they are eligible for Australian citizenship.
MARK COLVIN: Sandy Logan, a spokesman for the Immigration Department, ending Shane McLeod’s report.
Source: www.abc.net.au
