# Talk:Australian nationality law

@Aemilius Adolphin, I reverted your recent changes so that we can discuss them here before moving forward. In your reversion of my change, you cited that certain content is not supported by sourcing and I'd like you to specifically point out where you believe sourcing is inadequate. You also have removed text that covers ethnic minorities and downplayed the significance of the regulatory barriers faced by immigrants of those backgrounds. This especially is a point of concern. Horserice (talk) 23:36, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello there
Sorry, I responded on your Talk page before I saw this. As for my other changes, perhaps we could discuss your concerns on your talk page, and if we can't agree on wording we can then throw it open for further discussion here. And I didn't just remove content: I added information, corrected misinformation and added new sources. "BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes."WP:BRD Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:03, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I think we have had this discussion before, but the information on voting rights for Aboriginal Australians and restrictive immigration policies for Asians is irrelevant to nationality law. There are already articles on the Australian franchise and the White Australia Policy which cover these issues.
Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:57, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll copy my answer from that previous discussion.
Because there were barriers for specific groups of people that otherwise might have naturalised, it should be important to highlight here. Focusing solely on the letter of nationality law here does not properly show the difficulties that would have been encountered by these migrants before they even could attempt an appropriate process under nationality law. It would not have mattered that "Asian and African applicants seeking to become subjects were required to have lived in the colony for three years, and be married and living together with their wives" if specifically targeted migrants could not even pay additional entrance fees. Nationality law of course covers naturalisation, and without immigration there is no naturalisation. My version details the regulations that were in place that prevented them from even beginning the process to naturalise at all.
At the time, you were satisfied with the version of this article we arrived at. Horserice (talk) 23:19, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
I haven't cut that part. It still says, "Regulations regarding non-European migrants varied by colony but clearly favoured immigrants of European descent over members of any other ethnic groups. Queensland created two different sets of requirements in 1867 for naturalisation of "Asiatic and African aliens" and "European and North American aliens". Asian and African applicants seeking to become subjects were required to have lived in the colony for three years, and be married and living together with their wives. Chinese migrants were specifically targeted in colonial legislation that charged fees for entry to or residence in the colonies, and banned them from naturalising as British subjects. In 1889, entrance fees for Chinese in each of the Australasian colonies were standardised at £10, except for Queensland which required £30."
What I have cut is the part about gold rushes and riots which is covered in the History of Australia article. I have also cut the bit about voting rights for Aborigines which is irrelevant to naturalisation law and is covered in the article on Australian suffrage. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Going to quote from the previous discussion again.
A very visible marker of who is considered Australian or not is in fact by the ability to vote. Otherwise, the 1984 abolition of British subject status and subsequent change in voting/parliamentary office qualification to Australian citizens would not be so important. Why focus on removing detail on Indigenous voting rights at all? Why not remove all the detail on the lack of permanent residence on the Australian mainland for territorial citizens? Which rights are worth discussing and which are not?
Brevity is fine and all but it's odd to leave discussion in the article on franchise qualification relevant to other groups (British subjects) and not Aborigines. Horserice (talk) 23:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
"A very visible marker of who is considered Australian or not is in fact by the ability to vote."
This is demonstably untrue for most of Australian history. From the time there was such a thing as voting in Australia (and Europe for that matter) women and people without property couldn't vote. Yet the article (rightly) does not go into a long history of women's right to vote in Australia. I have already explained the reason I am focusing of Aboriginal voting rights. It is because this is supposed to be an article about nationality, not voting rights. No one denied that  under Australian nationality law Aborigines were British subjects and after 1949 Australian citizens as well.  The issue of  voting rights for British subjects resident in Australia in 1984 is completely different. By then Australia had long had its own citizenship and nationality laws and the issue was that by then British residents in Australia were the only non-citizens who could vote. Perhaps this would best be covered in the article about the franchise in Australia, but that's not my concern. My concern is that this article has very detailed content on Aboriginal voting rights and this level of detail should be in the relevant articles not in an article about nationality law. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)