This Thursday 17 September is Australian Citizenship Day. It is traditionally a soft day, recalling for me all the ceremonies I've attended with friends who had just become Australian citizens.
People from many nations gather, welcomed by the local mayor and perhaps given a little tree to be planted as a symbol of their own grafting on to the Australian vine.
This year the day has a sharper edge. As a response to terrorism, the Government has introduced legislation to strip people with dual nationality of citizenship if they have behaved in a way that assists terrorism.
Despite concerns about the imprecision of the legislation, the power given to the executive and the limited access to judicial review, it will probably pass with the support of both major parties.
This legislation is yet another clipping by executive power of the meaning and security of citizenship. It makes it natural to see citizenship, not as an indispensable part of our human dignity, but as a privilege bestowed on us by Government and taken away from us at will.
When we become citizens we enter a contract by which we commit ourselves to obey Australian laws and to respect other Australians. In return we enjoy the rights and benefits of citizens. But at a deeper human level, citizenship is not created by this promise nor removed by its breach.
Citizenship responds to our desire to call Australia home. A home is a place that we own, and which we try to make a happy place. It is built over time and becomes part of us. So citizenship is like a marriage — we make this country our own for better and worse, richer and poorer, till death do us part. We own the nation with all its faults, and the nation owns us with all our faults.
As in marriage, we recognise that Australia is the place we want to make our home before we become citizens. It is not simply a legal contract that is defined and concluded at the moment we sign it, but a living relationship. It gives us a place in the world, with the privileges and responsibilities that this involves.
All this is to say that citizenship, once sought and granted, is a gift and not simply a loan. It involves a network of relationships with place, people, extended family and workmates, language and customs. All these relationships deepen over time and become part of