The Australian parliament is legislating by SurveyMonkey: asking for a public yes-no vote in an online poll on Pauline Hanson’s proposed legislation to change citizenship law.
In an exceedingly rare move, the Senate legal and constitutional affairs legislation committee has set up a SurveyMonkey online poll, asking people one question: do you support the provisions of the Australian citizenship legislation amendment (strengthening the commitments for Australian citizenship and other measures) bill 2018?
Hanson’s February bill is the second time in seven months the committee has been asked to assess what is essentially, the same legislation.
Respondents to the online poll have to provide a name and an email address, though there is no requirement for these to be genuine. It is also possible to fill out the survey multiple times.
The result of the poll is not binding on the committee, nor on the parliament (that would be unconstitutional). However, the results will be contained in the committee’s report, which is to be tabled in December this year.
SurveyMonkey is an online data collection and survey platform, allowing users to run surveys via web, email, and social media such as Facebook.
The government proposed toughening the requirements for Australia’s citizenship last year. But its bill attracted fierce political and public opposition, particularly over its requirement that migrants pass high-level English tests and its retrospective application of a four-year permanent residence period – up from the current one year – as a prerequisite. It also proposed the signing of an Australian Values Statement by new citizens, and changing the pledge of commitment to a “pledge of allegiance”.
The government softened the legislation significantly in an attempt to get it through the upper house but the bill was still opposed by Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon Team in the Senate, and was ultimately struck from the Senate paper.
However, debate over citizenship has been revived by Hanson, who has proposed essentially the same bill: it is word-for-word identical to the government’s proposal, save its name appended with the new year, and with one new, tougher restriction on migrants to Australia becoming citizens.
Hanson’s renewed amendment bill proposes raising the permanent residence requirement to eight years.
“I believe people should prove their loyalty to Australia, that they should be prepared to assimilate, that they don’t have any criminal records of bad character,” Hanson told Sky News. “I want more stringent tests on becoming an Australian citizen.”
The online survey was decided upon by committee members. The committee had already held a full inquiry into the government’s near-identical bill, so was disinclined towards repetition. However, submissions are welcome to the new inquiry, and submissions to the former inquiry – it attracted more than 635 – will also be considered.
The chair of the committee, the Liberal senator Ian Macdonald, has been approached for comment.
But Guardian Australia understands the broader Senate’s disposition towards the citizenship changes is unchanged from last year, and the bill appears unlikely to proceed, regardless of the result of the online survey.
In 2017 the Australian government ran the controversial marriage equality postal survey, which resulted in the Marriage Act being changed to allow same-sex marriage.
That survey was criticised in some quarters as an abrogation of parliament’s responsibility to debate and pass legislation for the nation.
But parliamentary democracies have experimented with alternative forms of representative democracy in recent years.
Ireland established a citizens assembly in 2016 to consider significant political questions such as abortion, fixed parliamentary terms, referenda, population and ageing, and climate change. Its reports are considered by the Irish parliament.
The Netherlands held a citizens assembly on electoral reform in 2006 and provinces in Canada have used them for similar debates.
