EDITORIAL: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s pre-election citizenship drive stinks

On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with Tony Burke’s national citizenship roadshow.

As he has pointed out, as Home Affairs Minister, citizenship falls directly into his portfolio.

And he has what sounds like a perfectly sound rationale for the blitz: to clear a backlog of prospective Aussies who have passed all the hurdles to citizenship and are waiting only on a ceremony to make it official.

Therefore, he’s taken it upon himself to take the administrative burden off local councils — which ordinarily take responsibility for citizenship conferrals — and has organised industrial-scale ceremonies across the country at which about 12,800 new Aussies will take the pledge.

Mr Burke’s claim of a massive citizenship backlog doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Nationally, the average wait time to receive citizenship after clearing all requirements is just 105 days.

Across the six local government areas involved at Friday’s mass ceremony in Perth, less than 3 per cent of aspiring Aussies were waiting longer than six months for their conferral as of the end of January.

There’s no argument that these would-be Aussies should be granted citizenship in a timely fashion.

But why now? A close look at the local government areas invited to participate is revealing.

The 1050 new Australians who took the pledge in Perth on Friday are now eligible to vote in the yet-to-be-called Federal election, in the seats of Pearce, Curtin, Brand, Tangney, Moore and Fremantle.

Pearce and Tangney both changed hands to Labor at the 2022 election and are considered in danger of returning to the Liberals. Moore is held by a razor thin margin for the Liberals by Ian Goodenough, who will recontest the seat — but this time, as an independent, given he lost Liberal pre-selection. Mr Goodenough was front and centre at Friday’s ceremony.

It stinks. It looks like a blatant attempt to stack key seats with friendly voters.

Curtin is currently held by teal independent Kate Chaney, who unseated Liberal Celia Hammond at the last election. It is considered the Liberals’ best chance of reclaiming a seat from the teals.

Brand, while considered safe, is held by Labor’s only West Australian member of Cabinet, Resources Minister Madeleine King.

These electorates now have an influx of grateful new citizens, who may recall chatting with that nice local member when they achieved their long-held goal of Australian citizenship.

This may go some way to providing an explanation for Mr Burke’s sudden urgency to clear this so-called citizenship backlog.

It stinks. It looks like a blatant attempt to stack key seats with friendly voters.

Last week in Sydney, Mr Burke held a similar ceremony in the marginal electorate of Fowler. Absent from the guest list was the seat’s independent MP Dai Le.

Mr Burke has reacted with predictable outrage to the suggestion that he had any ulterior motive for the rushed citizenship drive.

There may be a reasonable explanation for his urgency. But we are yet to hear it.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by editor-in-chief Christopher Dore