Pauline Hanson accuses foreign nations of hijacking citizenship survey
PAULINE Hanson has accused refugee groups and foreign nationals of interfering in the results of a survey on a proposed law that would make it more difficult to become an Australian citizen.
NSW
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REFUGEE groups and foreigners have been accused of hijacking an online survey designed to test Australians’ views on beefing up the citizenship test.
The Senate Committee for Legal and Constitutional Affairs launched the survey as they consider a bill put forward by Pauline Hanson to stop people becoming Australian citizens until they have lived in the country for eight years.
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But Ms Hanson told The Daily Telegraph foreigners were interfering in the survey results by voting numerous times and lobbying people to vote against the changes.
“Here we have these foreign nationals, they’re foreign interference as far as I’m concerned, they’re interfering in our laws and our citizenship and I’m telling them: keep your noses out of it,” the One Nation leader said last night.
“It should be only for Australian citizens; I don’t even believe permanent residents should even have a say in this.”
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The Committee launched the yes-no poll in March asking: “Do you support the provisions of the Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Commitments for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2018?”
Senator Hanson’s renewed amendment bill proposed raising the permanent residence requirement to eight years — the current requirement is just one year.
Voters were asked to provide a name and email address but there is no requirement for responses to be genuine.
In one instance, a link to the survey was shared on popular Chinese overseas study portal Tigtag where the user encouraged people to vote no “for our Chinese interests and the future”.
They wrote: “links have vulnerabilities and can be polled multiple times with different browsers and different computers”.
A Facebook group targeting Hazara refugees living in Indonesia also shared the link, writing: “Say no to unfair citizenship bill”.
The German Honorary Consulate in Brisbane, the Refugee Council of Australia, New Zealand lobby group Oz Kiwi and the Australian Oriental Media Network were among dozens of other groups that shared the survey.
A furious Senator Hanson insisted the citizenship question be taken to a plebiscite in light of votes from non-Australian citizens.
“I’m so angry about this and I’m now calling on the committee to disregard that survey. A plebiscite should be put at the next Federal Election,” she said.
Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge said the questions related to a bill put forward by Senator Hanson, “not a Government bill”.
“I am continuing to engage with key stakeholders around the country on the importance of strengthening Australia’s citizenship laws,” he said.
In a response to Senator Hanson, committee chair Ian Macdonald said the Secretariat had personally contacted her office and “no objection was raised to the poll”.
The Liberal senator pointed out there was “never any restriction on who makes submissions to Senate inquiries”, adding the weight of the poll’s results was a matter for individual committee members.
“Those Polls have little influence on my decision, after reading written submissions and listening to evidence, on whether or not the Bill should be approved,” he said.
The survey will close at 5pm today.