How can some of our returned service personnel be 'aliens' in Australia?

Accordingly, recommendation 17 of the unanimous Senate Committee Report, Lost Innocents: Righting the Record, recommended “that the Commonwealth Government confer automatic citizenship on all former child migrants, with provision for those who do not wish to become Australian citizens to decline automatic citizenship.”

Regrettably and wrongly, in May 2002 the Federal Coalition government rejected this recommendation, stating that it did “not consider that automatic conferral of Australian citizenship is always in the best interests of former child migrants. … The government will, however, examine ways to fast-track applications …”.

The Shaw decision makes "fast-tracking" no longer possible because former child migrants are again "aliens". These aliens arrived here with the active participation of successive Australian governments as a policy to cheaply populate our country with "good white stock".

"We will decide who comes here and on what terms", says the government. Fair enough, you say - until you realise how hard-hearted and unreasonable they can be.

The government should not be able to chuck out ageing Australian residents who have lived here since small children. Recommendation 17 needs revisiting and immediate implementation.