[LINK] [PRIVACY] Re: Wikileak founder's passport cancelled

[Roger Clarke]

Roger Clarke wrote:
>>>  What legal capacity does any government agency have to:
>>>  (a)  "confiscate" a passport?
>>>  (b)  "cancel" a passport?
>>  Quick Searches using both Google and AustLII have yielded precious
>>  little guidance on the rights of Australians in relation to passports.

At 17:38 +1000 17/5/10, Stephen Wilson wrote:
>Is it not significant that inside the passport it says, in capitals,
>that it remains the property of the Australian government?

Quite possibly, although there are counter-arguments, and it's a 
question of law, not a question of what some bureaucrat got printed 
inside passports.

We thought we had rights as citizens, including a right to a passport.

Did the Howard regime, aided and abetted by Labor, annul that?


See s.7:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/apa2005261/s7.html
>Australian citizen is entitled to be issued an Australian passport
>(1)  An Australian citizen is entitled, on application to the 
>Minister, to be issued with an Australian passport by the Minister.
>  [BUT] (2)  An Australian citizen's entitlement to be issued with an 
>Australian passport is affected by section 8 [which is procedural] 
>and by Division 2 [ss. 11-19], which are what matter, starting here:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/apa2005261/s11.html


Aside:  I've now located in ss. 18-19 the provisions that I suggested 
in my previous post may have been lacking in the Act.  It's god-awful 
drafting style (the quality of work of legislative draftsmen is 
atrocious - always assuming that the intention is for legislation to 
be understandable ...), but the power to cancel is probably workable:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/apa2005261/s18.html


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
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Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University