From Subject to Citizen

This is a book about what it has meant, and what it means to be, a citizen of Australia. When I was doing research into what may seem a dry-as-dust subject, of interest only to lawyers and students of politics, I was constantly reminded how much citizenship is really a central concern for human beings bent on being happy and seeking justice. This is why they have fought and died here and elsewhere for the rights of citizenship. I was also reminded that it is only part of life and usually understood not as a goal in itself, or intrinsically virtuous, but as an activity and status directed towards other more private human realms where human conviviality and friendship are the goal. At one of the Conventions on Citizenship which were held in Australia from the 1950s onwards, a delegate from the Good Neighbour Council – in the blunt tones of a now almost forgotten commonsense of the man on the land – reminded other delegates that what a new immigrant really wanted was a warm human welcome and not a diet of citizen education.

This book is thus written in full awareness that a discussion of citizenship – a realm of political activity with particular rules – presumes a wider context of the social. While it must concentrate on those procedures or practices, it has little human meaning unless it addresses a context which explains why citizenship is so important.