The Section 44 soap opera: why more MPs could be in danger of being forced out

H. K. Colebatch, UNSW

One thing we learned from the recent election campaign is that the political crisis over Section 44 of the Constitution has not gone away.

Many candidates in the election had their eligibility to stand for parliament questioned and some were even forced to withdraw from their races.

Despite all the attention given to this matter over the last couple of years, and the various procedures introduced to address it, Section 44 will only continue to be a problem until the parliament steps in to address it.

To do that, we first need to address seven myths about Section 44.

1. Everyone knows their citizenship, they just need to do their paperwork

Section 44 is about more than just citizenship – it covers a variety of restrictions on who can serve in parliament.

For instance, a GP who bulk-bills a patient could be considered to have a “pecuniary interest in an agreement with the Commonwealth.” And a postman or a nurse in a public hospital could be deemed to hold “an office of profit under the Crown.”

On citizenship, the section doesn’t just disqualify dual citizens, it also bars those “entitled” to citizenship elsewhere (even if they haven’t applied for it) and those “entitled to the rights and privileges” of citizenship (basically, the “right of abode”, or being entitled to enter a country and live there).

Such entitlements are not easy to discover and almost impossible to remove, because they’re embedded in foreign legislation.

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Read more:
How the Australian Constitution, and its custodians, ended up so wrong on dual citizenship

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2. It doesn’t affect many people

On the contrary, the parliamentary committee investigating the matter estimated half the adult Australian population, or more, could be disqualified by law or impeded in practice from standing for parliament.

In the recent election, we saw one potential candidate withdraw because she was an Australia Post employee and another because she was entitled under Indian law to some privileges of Indian citizenship.

As a result, the Australian parliament becomes even less representative of the Australian people.

3. The constitution framers knew what they were doing

The original text agreed to at the constitutional convention in 1898 simply said anyone who had acquired foreign citizenship by their own act was disqualified from standing for parliament.

The text that eventually became Section 44 was inserted surreptitiously by one of the key architects of the constitution (and Australia’s first prime minister), Edmund Barton, as a drafting amendment. He introduced 400 amendments on the second-to-last day of the convention, but made no mention of this change, and expressly denied there had been any changes to Section 44 apart from a minor one to another subsection.

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Read more:
Could Section 44 exclude Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce from parliament?

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4. The High Court has sorted it out

Far from it. Very few cases challenging Section 44 have made it that far, partly because the court has done everything possible to fend them off, including trashing the constitutional provision giving citizens the right to challenge the eligibility of parliamentarians. Politicians have also refused to refer cases to the court unless it’s advantageous to their party.

And when the court has heard a case, it has construed its task so narrowly as to give little guidance to future action on the section. In particular, it has said nothing about the disqualification of those MPs “entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship” in other countries.

In fact, when Senator Matthew Canavan’s eligibility was challenged because Italian laws had changed to permit citizenship to descendents of native Italians, the High Court noted that the law was fairly generous, but one had to apply. Canavan hadn’t applied, therefore couldn’t be an Italian citizen.

But if he had applied and then received Italian citizenship because he was eligible (as his brother had done), he would have been disqualified by Section 44.

This was all too much for the court to sort out. As a result, it offered no clarity on the large number of MPs whose eligibility hangs on what sorts of “entitlement” would disqualify them.

Senator Matthew Canavan was not disqualified after the High Court ruled his Italian citizenship was ‘potential,’ not actual.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

5. But there are administrative checks now, too

Well, yes, but nobody does anything about them. In 2017, all MPs were asked to fill out a form documenting their ancestry and citizenship, and the responses were then logged in a citizenship register. This showed some 15-20 MPs were entitled to foreign citizenship and a total of 59 had the “right of abode” in the UK, which the High Court has decided is the key to the “right and privilege” of citizenship.

But no action was taken on any of these cases. The register appears as a matter of record only.

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Read more:
Enough is enough on section 44: it’s time for reform

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Similarly, although the Australian Electoral Commission is now requiring candidates to complete a similar form, it does not take action against those who refuse to submit it, or leave sections blank. One candidate was referred to the police, but this was clearly a pointless face-saving exercise.

6. We want our MPs to be unequivocally Australian

Having foreign ancestry does not make you un-Australian. Section 44 does nothing to establish the strength of identity or loyalty – it simply prevents an undefined, but potentially very large, slice of the population from standing for parliament.

One case illustrates the ludicrous reach of the present wording.

After Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, it passed a citizenship law that gave people born outside the country to Lithuanian parents the right to citizenship. In 2016, this provision was expanded to cover those with Lithuanian grandparents. As a result, Senator Doug Cameron, whose Scottish burr we are used to hearing on news broadcasts, became eligible for Lithuanian citizenship.

While Cameron could (and did) renounce his British citizenship to qualify for election to the Australian parliament, he cannot renounce his entitlement to Lithuanian citizenship. And while some people have very strong views about Cameron, I have never heard it suggested he was working to a Lithuanian agenda rather than an Australian one.

Senator Doug Cameron was born in Scotland, but his grandparents are from Lithuania – a fact he had to disclose on the new citizenship register.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

7. It’s too hard to change the Constitution

The same thing was said about amending the Marriage Act to permit same-sex couples to marry. The public recognises there’s a problem with Section 44 and it expects the politicians to fix it.

The best shot came with the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which recommended adding the words “until the parliament otherwise provides” to Section 44. This would not change the law, just where the law is made.

Instead of disqualifications being defined by the laws in foreign countries, as the High Court has interpreted Section 44, they could be determined by the Australian parliament. This is how qualifications of senators and members are currently decided. It’s also how women got the vote in 1902.

If this proposal was strongly supported by all the parties and clearly explained to the electorate, it would likely pass in the next election.

So where does this leave us?

It all comes down to leadership. Up to now, both the Coalition and Labor have been primarily motivated by partisan advantage: how can we use Section 44 to score a political point?

The Joint Standing Committee showed that with a willingness to collaborate, there is a path forward to solving the problem. The best we can hope for is that after the trauma of the last few years, and the evidence of the continuing decline in support for the main parties, political leaders will see that acting constructively on Section 44 might actually be in the best interests of both parties.

H. K. Colebatch, Visiting Professorial Fellow, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dual citizenship debacle claims five more MPs – and sounds a stern warning for future parliamentarians

Anne Twomey, University of Sydney

In one fell swoop, the High Court’s judgment about the eligibility of Katy Gallagher as a Senator disposed of five members of Parliament.

Not only was Gallagher disqualified, but the consequence was that Susan Lamb, Justine Keay, Josh Wilson and Rebekha Sharkie had no legal ground left to stand on. They had to resign, and they did.

In each case, although they had initiated the procedure to renounce their foreign citizenship before the nomination date at the last election, that procedure had not been completed in the United Kingdom and they were still formally British citizens on nomination day. That was enough to see them disqualified.

A change in the law or a clarification?

The ALP had previously boasted of its rigorous vetting of its candidates, and expressed certainty they were all validly elected.

What went wrong? Has the High Court changed its interpretation of the Constitution or has it been consistent, as the Liberal Party claims?

The answer is that the previous position, as set out by the High Court, was ambiguous and could legitimately have been interpreted in two different ways. What the High Court did was to clarify the law by removing the ambiguity.

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Read more:
Explainer: what the High Court decision on Katy Gallagher is about and why it matters

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When the issue was first dealt with in the 1992 case of Sykes v Cleary, Chief Justice Mason and Justices Toohey and McHugh rejected a strict reading of section 44(i) of the Constitution on the ground that it would:

result in the disqualification of Australian citizens on whom there was imposed involuntarily by operation of foreign law a continuing foreign nationality, notwithstanding that they had taken reasonable steps to renounce that foreign nationality.

They considered that it would

be wrong to interpret the constitutional provision in such a way as to disbar an Australian citizen who had taken all reasonable steps to divest himself or herself of any conflicting allegiance.

Their Honours pointed out that even at federation, Australia was a nation of migrants, and that:

it could scarcely have been intended to disqualify an Australian citizen for election to Parliament on account of his or her continuing to possess a foreign nationality, notwithstanding that he or she had taken reasonable steps to renounce that nationality.

The ambiguity was whether the “reasonable steps test”: (a) only applies where the person would otherwise be disbarred from parliament because he or she was unable to renounce the foreign citizenship by any reasonable means; or (b) applies to all categories of dual citizenship, including those that can readily be renounced by following a reasonable procedure. This would mean that a candidate need only take all the reasonable steps within his or her power to renounce the foreign nationality prior to the nomination date, even if the formal renunciation did not happen until after that date.

Either view about what the court meant could have been fairly taken, but on balance most scholars favoured interpretation (b) because their Honours went on to apply the test of “reasonable steps” to two candidates who had dual citizenship with countries that permitted renunciation.

It was therefore unsurprising that the ALP, in its legal advice to candidates, took interpretation (b), with the consequence that some of its candidates undertook the renunciation process before the nomination date, but not sufficiently early for the renunciation to be completed prior to nomination.

While this approach was legitimate, it was not the most cautious one, as it involved a risk of invalidity if the High Court later decided that (a) was the correct approach.

Doubts arose about this interpretation when the High Court handed down its judgment last year in relation to Barnaby Joyce and the other “citizenship seven” in the Re Canavan case.

There, when discussing the “reasonable steps test”, the High Court did so solely in the context of the “constitutional imperative” to avoid the “irremediable exclusion” of citizens from being capable of election to parliament.

This left lawyers wondering whether the reasonable steps test applied more broadly, and the court had simply not mentioned it in that context, or whether the Court was confining its application to circumstances where the foreign citizenship could not be renounced at all.

What the High Court decided in the Katy Gallagher case

We now have an answer – the court took interpretation (a) above. It held that the “reasonable steps test” only applies where it is impossible or not reasonably possible to renounce the foreign citizenship.

In such a case, the person must still take all reasonable steps within his or her power to renounce that citizenship (but not the “unreasonable” ones). Once this is done, the person can stand for Parliament even though the foreign citizenship continues.

But if the impediment is simply slow processing, or that renunciation is a matter of discretion, this is not enough to trigger the exception. The process of renunciation has to be completed in accordance with the law and procedures of the foreign country before the person nominates as a candidate in a Commonwealth election.

Has this now resolved all the problems?

We now have more certainty than we did a year ago. We know that a person can be disqualified for holding dual citizenship, even when it was inherited through parents and the person holding it did not know of its existence. Ignorance is no excuse. We also now know that a person has to complete the process of renunciation of that foreign citizenship before he or she nominates to stand for parliament, even if it takes a long time to complete it.

The only exemption will be if it is impossible to renounce the foreign citizenship or the steps for doing so are unreasonable, such as a requirement that would involve a risk to the person, such as residency in a dangerous country.

It is in this area that there may yet be litigation. Some countries make it very difficult to renounce foreign citizenship, and the court may have to decide in the future about the point at which that difficulty becomes unreasonable. So this may not necessarily be the last of these cases.

What are the ramifications?

In practice, it will mean that political parties need to complete their pre-selection processes well before an election to allow sufficient time for any renunciation. If there is a snap election, or where casual vacancies or byelections occur and a candidate is needed quickly, those with dual citizenship may have to be passed over if there is not enough time to renounce the foreign citizenship.

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Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Voters just want citizenship crisis fixed – but it isn’t that easy

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It is also likely that arrangements will be made with some countries, such as the United Kingdom, to fast-track processing of renunciation to deal with this problem.

But in other countries, this will not be feasible, so some potential candidates will have to renounce a long time in advance in order to be ready to nominate if the opportunity arises. The message to every aspiring politician is to check your family tree, identify any foreign citizenship you may have and renounce now.

Can this be fixed?

Realistically, the only way of removing this problem is by way of a constitutional amendment approved by a referendum. There have been many past proposals to repeal this disqualification, or to replace it with a requirement that all candidates be Australian citizens, or instead to give parliament the power to deal with the issue by legislation.

It would not be necessary to abandon the principle that members of parliament have sole allegiance to Australia. Instead, this could be achieved by legislation that puts control over renunciation of foreign citizenship into Australian hands.

The biggest problem with the current provision is that both the law as to who is a foreign citizen and the procedure to renounce it are outside Australian control.

Would such a referendum be successful? I have my doubts. It is likely to be perceived as something to help politicians, not the people.

But this High Court judgment will make it more difficult for people from some countries to become members of parliament, and that unfairness may provide a stronger argument to support a referendum to change the system.

Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Turnbull proposes all MPs make declarations on citizenship

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The Turnbull government is trying to limit the damage from the citizenship crisis with a plan to have all MPs make declarations about their circumstances.

The motion, agreed to by cabinet on Monday, will be moved in the Senate next week and in the House of Representatives when it resumes late this month.

The move came as questions continued about the status of Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, whose mother was born in Budapest but arrived in Australia stateless, and assistant minister Alex Hawke, born of a Greek mother.

Fairfax Media late Monday reported that Liberal backbencher John Alexander, who holds the New South Wales seat of Bennelong, might be a dual British citizen by descent because his father was born in the UK. It quoted a spokesman saying that Alexander “believes” his father renounced his British citizenship before Alexander was born.

Last week Senate President Stephen Parry quit parliament when he found he was a dual British citizen by descent.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten – who proposed on Friday a universal disclosure by MPs which was dismissed by Turnbull – said he would meet with Turnbull on Wednesday to discuss the move. But Shorten said this was “a rather dramatic about-face” and questioned what was behind Turnbull’s change of heart.

Section 44 of the Constitution prohibits a dual citizen being eligible to sit in parliament.

Under the government’s plan, MPs will have to state within 21 days of the resolutions being passed in their respective houses:

• that when they nominated they were not, to the best of their “knowledge and belief”, a citizen of any other country, and that they are not currently a dual citizen;

• the place and date of their birth, and their citizenship at that time;

• the places and dates of their parents’ births; and

• whether the MP has ever been a citizen of another country, and if so, the details and evidence of the time and manner of the renunciation of that citizenship or how otherwise it ended.

Turnbull said the move was about transparency, confidence and standing up for the Constitution.

He stressed this would not be an “audit” – for which there have been widespread calls – because an audit would involve bringing in an outsider.

“The obligation to comply with the Constitution, in terms of being qualified to sit in the House or the Senate, is on the shoulders of each and every member and senator,” he told a news conference after the cabinet discussion. “That’s why this will be their declarations and their disclosures.”

The disclosure would be similar to those made by MPs about their pecuniary interests and they would be provided to the registrar of members’ interests. If anyone made a false statement they would be in contempt of parliament, with parliament able to impose penalties – although in practice penalties are not imposed for inaccuracies in statements of pecuniary interests.

Turnbull stressed that it is only the High Court that can adjudicate on citizenship status. If the declaration process threw up instances of dual citizenship, the House of Representatives or the Senate could refer the cases to the court.

“Members and senators have been put squarely on notice now, and so they will be turning their mind to their own affairs and the issues of … foreign citizenship,” Turnbull said.

He said in recent instances foreign citizenship had come about in two ways – citizenship by descent, as with Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash, and where somebody had been a citizen of another country and had not properly renounced that citizenship, as with Malcolm Roberts.

Turnbull said the Liberal federal director Andrew Hirst “has told me that all of the Liberal Party members believe that they are in compliance with the Constitution”.

Details about grandparents are not being required, although they are relevant to citizenship by descent.

Asked about their omission, Turnbull said it was a question of “remoteness and knowledge”.

“I think we may find that some members will have to do quite a bit of research to determine the place and date of birth of their parents, let alone their grandparents or potentially great-grandparents. It’s simply trying to get a balance between what is reasonably accessible and remote.”

He said some people “when they do due diligence might come to the conclusion that they are not eligible and they choose to resign”.

“On the other hand, the circumstances that are published may be of a nature that other members say, well, you may be believe you are eligible but I do not.” And then the latter member could move the case be referred to the court.

The declarations would also be made after an election.

Turnbull said there were many aspects of the recent decision by the court – which ruled five of the seven current or former MPs before it were ineligible when elected – that needed to be worked on for future elections.

“For example we have to consider whether people who nominate for parliament should not be obliged to provide information like this as part of the nomination process, even if only to make sure they turn their minds to it,” Turnbull said.

Turnbull foreshadowed that there could be further cases. “The court made its decision in the terms it did. It may give rise to more cases.”

“The High Court decision does create some real challenges because they have said that knowledge is not material. The fact is that very often people do not know.

“It may be that they do not know because it is very hard to know. Maybe they do not know because they have not thought about it,” Turnbull said.

Liberal backbencher Eric Abetz, who last week called for an audit, welcomed the “prime minister’s strong and decisive action to restore the integrity of the parliament”.

“I am confident that it will go a long way to ensure the parliament is seen to have integrity not only in the short term but well into the future,” Abetz said. “I am appreciative that the prime minister has taken on board the views of the backbench on this issue.”

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said Turnbull’s plan was “full of holes” and did “nothing to end the uncertainty”. The Greens would continue to press for an audit. There needed to be a “forensic look at the documentation” when there were questions about a person’s potential dual citizenship.

Australian Conservatives leader Cory Bernardi tweeted:

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Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Shorten urges MPs all disclose citizenship to parliament

Bill Shorten has said Labor would support a ‘universal disclosure to the parliament’ on citizenship.
AAP/Mick Tsikas

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has proposed a compromise to deal with the citizenship crisis, saying Labor would support a “universal disclosure to the parliament”.

Labor has been on a unity ticket with the Coalition in opposing an audit, but as the crisis continues to unfold it has moved to a position that falls short of bringing in an outside auditor, while putting pressure on the government. The ALP argues an outside audit would undermine the High Court, which judges eligibility cases.

Shorten said the opposition accepted that more needed to be done to restore confidence in the system. The ALP had the strictest vetting system and so “nothing to fear from greater transparency and disclosure”.

Earlier, the government spent Friday warding off suggestions that Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg might be a citizen of Hungary, via his Jewish mother who was born in Budapest in 1943 and as a child came to Australia, stateless.

Shorten offered to co-operate with the government to come up with an agreed process for clarifying MPs’ citizenship.

“Whatever the ultimate process is, it must adhere to clear principles. It must be accountable to the people through the parliament. It must have bipartisan agreement prior to implementation. It must be sufficiently robust to give all Australians confidence in the process.

“But it must not be allowed to create more legal problems, or in any way undermine the supremacy of the High Court on these matters,” he said, adding that “one thing is clear – the situation as it stands cannot be allowed to continue”.

Frydenberg was drawn into the citizenship affair after The Australian highlighted the background of his mother.

Under a Hungarian law to address the stateless status of Jews persecuted in the war, anyone born in Hungary in 1941-45 is automatically a Hungarian citizen. The Hungarian citizenship act gives citizenship to the children of citizens, the paper reported.

Frydenberg said it was “completely absurd” to think that retrospectively, and against her will, his mother could be made a Hungarian citizen, and that that would flow through to him.

Turnbull, who has just returned from Israel, sounded emotional as he hit back strongly against any suggestion Frydenberg could be Hungarian.

“If any member of the House of Representatives wants to stand up and say – and move – that Josh Frydenberg is a citizen of Hungary, the country that were it not for the end of the war, would have killed his mother and his grandparents, if somebody wants to stand up and allege that, fine.

“Let them do that. They can do that. We’ll see if they persuade the House to refer the matter to the High Court,” he said.

Turnbull continued to resist calls for an audit: “We must not allow ourselves to be dragged into a sort of lynch mob, witch-hunt, trial by innuendo and denunciation.

“There is an established process here. There is a court, the highest in the land, that has the constitutional authority to deal with it and the parliament has the ability to make references to it.

“It’s about time we all returned to the land of common sense and the rule of law.”

Shorten said the government had no plan to resolve the citizenship crisis, and Turnbull had been incapable of providing leadership on it.

Shorten said he was deeply concerned that, following the resignation from parliament this week of Senate President Stephen Parry, stories had emerged about senior ministers being aware of the situation. This “cover-up” was alarming.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield has confirmed that Parry spoke to him some weeks ago about his situation, which Parry kept secret until this week.

Parry has indicated he spoke to various colleagues, and the feeling was he should not do anything before the High Court decisions on the multiple cases before it, which came last week.

In these decisions, Nationals Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash were disqualified. Parry then sought clarification on whether he, like Nash, was a British citizen and was told by the British authorities that he was, prompting his parliamentary resignation.

Turnbull said he wasn’t party to any conversation Parry had had with Fifield, but the responsibility to comply with the Constitution was with Parry.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Latest Persecution News – 11 March 2012

Church Head in Unprecedented Meeting with Turkish MPs

The following article reports on the meeting of the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey with members of the Turkish government over the future of Christianity in that country.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/turkey/article_1420539.html

 

Pakistani Muslims Employ ‘Blasphemy’ Threat in Land Grab

The following article reports on the threat of blackmail by Muslims in a dispute with Christians in the Punjab, Pakistan.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/pakistan/article_1420922.html

 

Indictment of ‘Masterminds’ of Murders in Turkey Expected

The following article reports on the continuing criminal investigation and trial associated with the murder of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske in 2007.

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/turkey/article_1421958.html

 

The articles linked to above are by Compass Direct News and  relate to persecution of Christians around the world. Please keep in mind that the definition of ‘Christian’ used by Compass Direct News is inclusive of some that would not be included in a definition of Christian that I would use or would be used by other Reformed Christians. The articles do however present an indication of persecution being faced by Christians around the world.

Indonesian Theology Students Withstand Threats, Illness

Seminarians resist eviction from former municipal building as they await decent relocation.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, December 1 (CDN) — Some 1,000 seminary students are resisting efforts to evict them from the former municipal building of West Jakarta where they have taken refuge after Muslim protestors drove them from their campus last year.

On Oct. 27 officials began evicting about 300 students of Arastamar Evangelical Theological Seminary (SETIA) from blocks I and II of the former mayoral building, but those in blocks III, IV, and V chose to remain.

The students, some of whom had sown their mouths shut as part of a hunger strike, asserted that new quarters offered by the Jakarta Provincial Government are not yet fit for occupancy – dirty and unkempt with broken windows and doors. They said the property offered, the North Jakarta Transmigrant building, has not functioned since 1999, and its five buildings accommodate only 200 to 300 students.

The seminary students told Compass that unidentified mobs have threatened them, telling them to leave the former municipal complex immediately.

“They threaten us and tell us that if we do not move, our safety cannot be guaranteed,” said SETIA’s Yulius Thomas Bilo.

The Rev. Matheus Mangentang, rector of SETIA, confirmed that the threats had been made. Asked about the identity of the mobs, he said he knew only that they appeared daily to intimidate and threaten students.

“We are going to move as soon as possible – Dec. 31 at the latest,” Mangentang said. “If we don’t, the place is no longer safe.”

He added, however, that they would not move until their new location was clear.

“We have not wavered in our desire to return to our own place, because we actually have our own campus in Kampung Pulo, East Jakarta,” Mangentang told Compass.

The Jakarta Provincial Government has not allowed the students and staff to return to their campus, citing fear of more violence.

“It is not permissible for them to return to Kampung Pulo; conditions are not conducive,” the Jakarta area secretary who goes by a single name, Muhayat, told Compass.

In July 2008 hundreds of protestors shouting “Allahu-Akbar [“God is greater]” and brandishing machetes forced the evacuation of staff and students from the SETIA campus in Kampung Pulo village. Urged on by announcements from a mosque loudspeaker to “drive out the unwanted neighbor” following a misunderstanding between students and local residents, the protestors also had sharpened bamboo and acid and injured at least 20 students, some seriously.

Water and Electricity Crisis

Conditions for the 1,000 students living in the former West Jakarta mayor’s complex are worsening.

“Since the end of October, we have had no electricity and no water,” said Alexander Dimu, head of the student senate. “We have to depend upon our own resources and donations to buy water. We need about US$100 per day for water.”

Compass noted hundreds of students lined up to obtain water for bathing and drinking. They used old buckets to carry water to the bathrooms, which were badly in need of repair.

As a result of such living conditions, many students have diarrhea and hemorrhagic fever. 

“So far, six have fever and 17 have diarrhea,” Dimu told Compass. “Those who are ill have been taken to a nearby hospital.”

A number of students have quit school, according to Mangentang, as their parents were worried about the health conditions. The average SETIA student is from outside Jakarta. They come from Nias Island, East Indonesia, Borneo and other areas. Their families are largely farmers.

“The parents have millions of expectations as to how they can help the children of their home villages after graduation,” said Mangentang.

The ultimate destination of the students is still unclear. The Jakarta Provincial Government has stood firm in ordering them to move to Cikarang, West Java, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from Jakarta. At the same time, the SETIA Foundation has requested the government find a new campus venue within Jakarta to avoid the difficult process of obtaining permits in the new provincial jurisdiction of West Java.

After SETIA staff and students met on Nov. 16 with several members of Parliament at the former mayoral office, the MPs led by Education Committee Vice Chairman Heri Ahmadi promised to ask Jakarta Gov. Fauzi Bowo to return them to their campus at Kampung Pulo with the necessary security. 

Mangentang said that he was still waiting for the members of Parliament to make good on that pledge.

The visit by the parliamentarians brought an end to a hunger strike by five students who had sewn their mouths shut at the former mayoral complex on Nov. 9. They were identified only as Yanisar, Leonardo, Mutari, Demas and Epy. That act followed a protest by the student council from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3.

Two units of heavy machinery had begun tearing down part of the main building where the 1,000 students are housed. Some of the students staying there were previously evicted from the Bumi Perkemahan Cibubur (BUPERTA) campground.

SETIA spokesman Yusup Agustinus Lifire told Compass the seminary is awaiting word from the Jakarta governor’s office about their returning to their campus at Kampung Pulo.

“We submitted an official letter to the governor, the police chief of Greater Jakarta and the military chief of Greater Jakarta on Oct. 28, but so far there is not any reply for us,” Lifire said. “We would like to leave this building if we could find a new place. It is not certain if the students began to attack and throw stones at police officers on Oct. 27-28 when they began demolishing one of the buildings. There were some provocateurs who started to throw some stones at police officers, then the officers threw the stones at the students and vice versa.”

Lifire also said the Jakarta governor’s office should take responsibility for the crisis. SETIA has asked the governor to guarantee security for a return to their original campus or else prepare or provide a new venue, he said.

A female student of Christian Education said there is a banner at the original campus that reads in Bahasa, “If you dare to return, we will wipe you out.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

Christmas could be cancelled by British government

Christmas could be cancelled by a bill being put forward by the Labour government, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have said, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

In a letter to MPs, Monsignor Andrew Summersgill, general secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said that Harriet Harmon’s Equality Bill will have a "chilling effect" on local councils, town halls and other organizations clamping down on Christmas festivities for fear of offending people of other religions.

The Equality Bill combines all previous equality legislation in the U.K., and includes a range of new provisions.

"Under existing legislation," Summersgill wrote, "we have seen the development of a risk-averse culture with outcomes as ridiculous as reports of a local authority instructing tenants to take down Christmas lights in case they might offend Muslim neighbours, or of authorities removing the word Christmas out of cultural sensitivity to everyone except Christians.

"If this bill is serious about equality, everything possible must be done to avoid it having a chilling effect on religious expression and practice."

The Christian Institute, Britain’s leading Christian political lobby group, has listed incidents where public displays of Christianity at Christmas have already come under attack. Councils around Britain are removing all references to the name "Christmas" from their 2009 events. Birmingham City Council has changed the name of this year’s light-switching-on event to the generic "Winterval." Last November an attempt by Oxford City Council to drop Christmas from the title of the city’s celebrations was condemned by both residents and religious leaders.

The Christian Institute complained about the bill, saying that councils "are already over-zealous in applying equality laws." The bill, they said, "will make this worse."

In fact, some of the Labour government’s closest advisors have already urged it to abolish public displays of a Christian origin at Christmas. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which has shaped many Labour party policies, said in 2007 that Christmas "should be downgraded to help race relations."

The equality legislation leads only to the law favoring aggrieved minority lobby groups over the existing Christian culture, the Christian Institute says. The group pointed to the closure and forced secularization of several of Britain’s Catholic adoption agencies under similar legislation, the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs) of the 2007 Equality Act.

Under the SORs, they said, "the rights of children have been trumped by the rights of homosexual adults. Any agency which refuses to do homosexual adoptions becomes a target for closure."

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Australia Considers Same-Sex "Marriage"

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

CANBERRA, November 10, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As part of its inquiry into the Marriage Amendment Bill the Australian government yesterday heard arguments for and against same-sex “marriage.”

The Australian Green party is pushing for the redefinition of marriage as part of their platform in anticipation of next year’s federal election.

Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to allow Labor MPs a free parliamentary vote on same-sex “marriage” when it comes before the House. “This is not a gay issue, it’s a human rights issue,” she said

“I’m calling for the prime minister to … grant his members a conscience vote so we can get a true reflection of how the Australian community is feeling,” Hanson-Young told ABC TV this week, adding, “The majority of Australians think people should be able to marry who they want.”

The Sydney Star Observer reports that the Bill has prompted a considerable response from citizens, with the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee receiving more than 20,000 submissions in the past two months.

The committee reported on Monday that the submissions ran about two to one against same-sex “marriage.”

“16,752 emails were received against amending the Marriage Act to include same-sex couples, while only 8,666 emails had been received for,” the report stated.

The Australian Family Association’s (AFA) submission reaffirmed that marriage should be reserved as a union between a man and a woman.

“We submit that marriage deliberately identifies and protects a particular type of relationship – the uniquely pro-generative male-female relationship – which carries a unique (and not inconsiderable) significance for both contemporary Australian society, and for the entire human species,” the AFA stated.

The AFA is encouraging Australians to send a strong message to their elected leaders to defend traditional marriage. A petition and contact information is available on the group’s website.

“Without a public ‘uprising’ to defend marriage,” said the group, “it is conceivable that Australia could join other nations (namely Canada, Spain, Belgium and some American states) in legalising same-sex ‘marriage’. We are charged therefore with the serious responsibility of working to retain the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Now, and over the next year we must garner an increasing mass of people to take a stand for marriage.”

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is scheduled to publish the results of its inquiry into the Marriage Amendment Bill on November 26, 2009.

This Report from LifeSiteNews.com

www.LifeSiteNews.com

Rudd Labor Off and Running … Liberals???

The Kevin Rudd Labor government is off and running, even though the government is yet to be sworn in. In what can only be described as very hopeful and wonderful signs of a pro-active government to come, Kevin Rudd and his newly formed ministry have hit the road running in almost every major policy area. The Rudd Labor government looks set to keep faith with the electorate by implementing each and every promise it made in the election campaign as quickly as possible.

Perhaps of even greater significance is the new government’s determination to meet every issue facing the nation head on, with a very strong emphasis of getting down and dirty with the nation as it seeks to meet the many problems that currently face it, including homelessness and indigenous affairs. Labor MPs are being urged very strongly by Prime Minister elect Kevin Rudd, to become intimately familiar with the problems facing Australia by getting in amongst the issues by visiting the homeless, aged care facilities, etc. These visits are not to be photo ops, but fact finding missions with a view to finding solutions for the problems facing Australia.

The doubters of Kevin Rudd must surely be very impressed with his approach to government thus far and the determination being shown by Labor in government to make a real difference and improvement in Australia for all. Kevin Rudd the man is now standing out for all of Australia to see and we watch with interest to learn more and watch his development as Prime Minister. The test of the man and leader is surely yet to come, as adversity will bring out the true character of Kevin Rudd – but he is certainly of to a great start. 

There is renewed hope for Australia’s future like there hasn’t been for many years – these are very interesting and exciting times to be Australian.

For the Liberal Party however it is more of the same it seems with the new leadership team sounding like the same party that was so soundly turned put of office in the recent national poll. John Howard, Peter Costello and co may all be gone, but the same tired rhetoric and sentiment seems to remain. It would appear that on current form a spell in the political wilderness beckons for the Liberal/National Party opposition, along with many leadership tensions and an inability to move on.

Ruddslide

The ‘Kevin 07’ campaign has been waged and won with victory for the ‘true believers.’ After 11 ½ years in opposition, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has swept to victory in the Australian national election, with the former Prime Minister (John Howard) loosing his own seat in the process. Not only has Kevin Rudd and the ALP swept John Howard and the Liberal-National Party government from office, it has now also seen off the leadership of John Howard, Peter Costello and Mark Vaile, along with several other high ranking Coalition ministers.

In the wake of Kevin Rudd’s 6% swing against the Howard government, the Liberal and National Party Coalition is in disarray and will now need to rebuild following it’s decimation in Saturday’s national election. The Coalition has lost government, its leadership, many party MPs and will loose its Senate majority in July 2008.

Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Brendan Nelson have all declared themselves as being contenders for leadership of the Liberal Party, and we are yet to hear who will stand for the National Party Leadership. Whoever does win leadership of the opposition parties, they face what is potentially a two-term opposition period (at least) given the extent of the Rudd victory.

Australians are now looking forward to the end of Workchoices and other draconian industrial relations legislation brought into being by the Howard government during their final term. There are also great hopes for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on CO2 emissions, as well as other climate change and environmental initiatives. Progress is also expected in many other key areas including health, education, refugees, social welfare, infrastructure, federal-state cooperation, defence policy and overseas intervention, etc.

The Australian electorate expects much from the new Rudd government and I for one do not expect that this trust will be in vain. Kevin Rudd is a man of great intellect, determination and action, and I think Australia will be delighted with his approach to government and leadership in the coming weeks and months.

Already Kevin Rudd has begun his role of leadership, along with deputy Julia Gillard, visiting a school today in order to get his education revolution under way immediately. He has also accepted an invitation to Bali in the next week or so to attend a conference on climate change and CO2 reduction targets. Already he has begun work on ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Targets. This is a wonderful first fruit and a sign of what is hopefully to come.

Australia is a great nation, with a great economic track record in recent years ~ however, our reputation as being a compassionate and just people has suffered in recent times. I for one will welcome a return to a more just and socially responsible government and nation.