Bye bye Cliffie so pleased to see you get the boot! As if we do not have enough criminals it seems the writer wants another?
The fact is that Cliff and his crim mates will use any law to get what they want and then squeal when they get what they asked for.
I think it is wonderful decision and such a pity it is not used as the first resort and not the last!
Australia gives migrants so much and it is not asking much in return to not injure and steal from Australians.

It's a pity we don't deport more criminals to where they originated and only discover the opportunity to do this by accident.

Whether it is fair or not to the "victim" is hardly the issue, the issue is he is a criminal, is of undesirable character and now we have discovered we can remove him permanently from our society.

Yay, let me line up with the victims of his crimes, who appear to attract no sympathy at all from the author, in waving farewell to another failed human being.

There are repercussions to actions, not always expected or in your control.

If he had not been a criminal, he would have been fine .. it was his choice to be on the wrong side of Australian society's acceptable activities.

Lot's of Brits in similar position go to Bali or where ever then discover we have new rules (since the 80s) but we let them back in.

I hope now this person accepts that he is responsible and accountable for his actions in Australia and does not continue his life of crime in the UK.

Well, I don't care if he does or doesn't to be honest. I imagine the victims feel much better though.

There is some irony in idea of deporting convicts to Britain.

While I hold no sympathy for criminals, this 47 year old man has lived here since he was six. He has lived for 41 years in Australia.

Mr Clifford is by all accounts an Australian in the spirit of the law even if not in principle.

It will probably be overturned as in the case of Robert Jovicic which set a precedent for this sort of removal.

It seems to me to be a pity that there is not a greater focus upon what appear to be the necessary implications of the rider to Section 44 (iv.) of the Constitution with respect to the validity of ordinary Commonwealth citizenship or nationality legislation as it may purport to relate to permanently resident British subjects.

To be sure, the rider to that sub-Section on the face of it deals with exemptions from disqualification from membership of either House of the Parliament of officers and members of both the Commonwealth, and the British, forces; a disqualification that might otherwise arise in the event of their being in receipt of pay, half-pay, or a pension from the Commonwealth.

The necessary implication contained in the rider is that the Constitution recognises an equality of status within Australia as between native born and/or naturalized Australians, and permanently resident British subjects, at large. That this recognition is mentioned in relation to membership or former membership of the respective armed forces is only for the purpose of excluding being in receipt of payment by this sub-class as grounds for disqualification from membership of the Parliament.

It would seem to me that if any ordinary Commonwealth legislation was intended to establish anything different to this implicitly recognised Constitutional equality of status, there would first have to have been an alteration to Section 44 of the Constitution. There never has been, and Section 44 is not a transitional provision of the Constitution, either.

Perhaps this is yet another case in Australia, where public and political responses to great issues tend too often to flow from robustly held misconceptions rather than from reasoned argument, of a permanently resident British subject being discriminated against contrary to their possession of an equality of status implicitly recognised within the Constitution.

If a person spendt most of his childhood in this country, I am afraid we are struck with them40 years later. it is not fair of us to load them off to another country our responsibilities. If he is dangerous here, he will be more dangerous there.

Richard Laidlaw,

Your article about the fate of Clifford Tucker could not but touch me.

Having listened to what Sir Gerald Brennan, chief of the High Court of Australia, the highest in the land and the one that exclusively deals with Constitutional matters, I realized how detached ‘formal justice’ is from the concerns of the ordinary people.

What is admirable in your writing is the humanitarian way with which you address the uneven contest between State and man

Pelican

Agree.

Someone who has lived their life here is responsible for their actions here.

Labor no different to Liberals on this and many other issues.

Oh the irony! Deporting a criminal back to the UK..LOL...No, what the government is trying to say is, " if your not valid Australian member, and you play up/break the LAW!... WE WILL THROW YOU OUT" and its about time Australia realizes, it has to be strong on all, thats in our best interests.

"This man is our problem, not Britain's"......Oh the irony again:)...but you had your chance bud! Oh and P/S.....from the circumstances for how and why you were deported.....you! 'are without doubt....the worst criminal, I have ever seen!

Enjoy your one-way ticket:).....coz you earnt it:)

LEAP

So have I got this straight?

He was deported because he has committed crimes in Australia, and is not an Australian national.

So now we can expect - no, let's not stand on ceremony, we must demand - that we automatically deport anyone who is convicted of a crime, and who does not have an Australian passport.

That's a huge step in the right direction.

And of course, it makes so much more sense if we do it at the time they are tried, rather than have to wait until they take an overseas holiday, doesn't it? Who knows how long we might have to wait? Some of them might not even be able to afford a trip to Bali.

We're just too soft on these people. Heck, we don't even use the cane on foreigners like they do in Malaysia.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/301110

Smart fella, Johnny Malay.

In fact, while we are about it, why not simply deport everyone who hasn't become a citizen by, say, next Wednesday? They've had their chance, and they blew it. We don't want their sort here.

There, that's better.

Pass me my nerve tonic, nurse - yes, that one with the label saying Bundaberg. And fetch my rattan cane, will you, I have some work to do.

By the way, <flex, flex> do you have your passport on you...?

Pericles........lol.......Yes I do!...do you?......(passport:)

LEA

40 years in the country and couldn't be bothered to take out Australian citizenship(luckily for us). Why did it take so long,that's the real scandal, he should have been given the boot years ago.

There's some indignant noises by British commenters re the deportation on the BBC website,you can guess the tone.

There are two issues here (besides the legal one). The first is, does Tucker have a moral entitlement to stay; the second, do we have a moral entitlement to deport him. The answer to the second is clear; no we don't. We have no business deporting the failures of our own institutions elsewhere; or exporting problems we have created. What has the UK done to deserve this?

And while I'm at it, taking delight in the punishment of criminals is an unpleasant vice.

Periciles,
I think the law is that the person must be convicted of a crime and sentenced to 2 years jail, at least, and yes we do deport a few.

Only some unusual cases get media attention. Robert jocivic was similar and an habitual criminal, but he eventually won because Labor, in opposition, kicked up a hell of a stink. He is here somewhere

My question is why did the deportation for both not happen years ago?
They both are habitual criminals. Maybe a liason problem between the state end feds.

Another unusual one I recall was about a bloke that was jailed for drug dealing and was to be deported. At his appeal it was revealed that he had fathered a child while here and the court ruled in his favour because his deportation may cause stress for the child.

Our justice system is far too lienient, would not be surprised if we pick up the cost of Clifords return fare.

Yet seems tough in other instances. A UK couple, visa overstayers, were deported after being here about 30 years and had set up a small business in South Sydney. They were contributing to society and were highly thought of in their suburb because of voluntary work, etc. But out they go.

I find Robert Laidlow's attitude to protecting the welfare of foreign born criminals to be utterly astonishing. Not only do some citizens of Australia think more about the welfare of foreigners than they do their own citizens, Robert Laidlow takes it one further and defends the interests of foreign criminals at the expense of their victims.

Where do these loonies come from?

Crime is a growth industry in Australia, and much of it is ethnic related. Cabramatta is the heroin capitol of Australia, and according to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, 55% of the handgun murders in the entire state of NSW occur within the boundaries of two notorious ethnic ghettoes.

The costs of crime are stagggering. The Attorney General in 1990 calculated the cost of crime at $18 billion per year. That is money redirected from schools, infrastructure, hospitals, welfare, and scientific research, to finance prisons, security guards, police, the judiciary,drug rehabilitation, and a host of expensive and largely useless social programs.

The state of NSW has built one university in the last ten years and four new prisons.

It would cost almost nothing to reapraise our immigration program and institute a discriminatory imigration program similar to the Swiss model. A British style ten year probationary period for citizenship wold also pay enormous dividends. For foreign born children, their period of probation should start at age 18. Any serious criminal behaviour in that time and out you go.

As murdered NSW MLA John Newman once remarked about Vietnamese criminals in Cabramatta "The only thing they fear is deportation." Putting some fear into the minds of foreign born criminals looks like poetic justice to me.

Mac:”40 years in the country and couldn't be bothered to take out Australian citizenship(luckily for us). Why did it take so long,that's the real scandal, he should have been given the boot years ago.”

Shouldn’t his parents of done it – or could they do it?

First you need Residency and a sponsor to get that before applying for Citizenship. He can’t of ever collected a benefit without Residency or maybe that rule changed a few times over the years.

Wouldn’t someone of checked paperwork before he got his invite into the prison system?

41 years – I’m surprised Britain will take him since Aussie made him who he is.

Lego at what point do you reckon someone becomes Australian (good or bad) outside of the paperwork?

The MAN is THE problem, NOT his location!

The man came to this country as a child. He wasn't a criminal then.
And he's lived in this country for 41 years paid his debt to society
for the crimes he committed - by serving his sentences in our jails. He's paid his debt to society, (I would have thought). I simply don't understand how legally he could be deported to another country.
I think this is bureaucracy gone mad - or an Immigration Department that needs looking into. They're obsiously attracting the wrong kind of people on their staff.

Jewely,
You said "Lego at what point do you reckon someone becomes Australian (good or bad) outside of the paperwork?"

A person has to be born here or applies for citizenship after being a permanant resident for minimum 4 years. Being resident here for 100 years does not make him a citizen. If he is a UK citizen, the Poms cannot refuse to take him.

You said, on another thread, that the only advantage you could see in becoming a citizen was that you got to vote. Well here is another--- A citizen cannot be deported under any circunstances.

He should have been deported years ago, as should have Robert Jocivic.

We have enough crims of our own, we don't want or need to import them.

Lexi,
We did not make this bloke a crim, he made that choice and let us hope that is the last we see of him.

Don,t you think we should expell any non-citizen crims? I do, they have thumbed their nose at our generosity.

Dear Banjo,

I don't disagree with you on so many issues. I simply try to see things not simply just as black or white - but at the shades in between as well. And in this case - I simply can't get my mind around the fact that this man came here as a child, and has not known any other country but Australia. His family is here. Whatever possessed him to do what he chose to do who knows - the fact remains he is an
Australian in every thing but form as the author states. Why should another country take responsibility for him? To me that simply doesn't add up. It's not logical. And we're not accepting responsibility but trying to make it somebody else's problem. He wasn't a criminal when he immigrated. He became one in this country.
And that's our responsibility. As I see it at least.

Banjo:”Don’t you think we should expel any non-citizen crims? I do, they have thumbed their nose at our generosity.”

Yeah like if they came here and were all bad but from 6 years old?

Banjo:”A person has to be born here or applies for citizenship after being a permanant resident for minimum 4 years. Being resident here for 100 years does not make him a citizen. If he is a UK citizen, the Poms cannot refuse to take him.”

That is all official stuff… he’s more Aussie than anyone under 35 years old who was born here I reckon. 4 bloody years – after applying? WHY? Can you get turned down heaps and still stay or is not applying the safer option?

Banjo:”You said, on another thread, that the only advantage you could see in becoming a citizen was that you got to vote. Well here is another--- A citizen cannot be deported under any circunstances.”

Yes but I am terribly well behaved. :)

Banjo:”We did not make this bloke a crim, he made that choice”

This is saying Australia has no impact on its people, does not shape them or make who they are as adults.

This person who was brought here as an infant by his parents, on the invite of the Australian government; and because decades later he does not have a piece of citzenhip paper, he is deported.
He may have been antisocial, that required custodial sentences, but he paid the price for that.
What a sad state of affairs Australia is in, when it to come to human rights!

This person who was brought here as an infant by his parents, on the invite of the Australian government; and because decades later he does not have a piece of citzenhip paper, he is deported.
He may have been antisocial, that required custodial sentences, but he paid the price for that.
What a sad state of affairs Australia is in, when it to comes to human rights!

Have we forgotten that this man has children, who are most definitely Australian?

As long as we continue to pretend that our justice system is about reformation and rehabilitiation then we as a society owe it to his children at least (if not him), to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He might not be a pillar of our society (based solely upon his past deeds), but he is their father and in deporting this man we are denying these children a right to a continuing relationship with their father.

To me, that is just plain sad.

It is an indirect measure of the extent of the recent improvement in the quality of debate on OLO when articles attract first-time commenters, as this one has. Viewers of the 'Newest users' display ( http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/ ) will note that OLO's current newest registered user 'Saoirse' has posted in this thread. Freezing that event in time: http://twitpic.com/4nbebt

Welcome to OLO Saoirse.

In the light of the views expressed by the majority of posters so far, I feel compelled to re-state the last paragraph of my earlier post of Tuesday, 19 April 2011 at 10:13:20 AM, but without the opening word 'Perhaps':

"[T]his is yet another case in Australia,
where public and political responses to
great issues tend too often to flow from
robustly held misconceptions rather than
from reasoned argument, of a permanently
resident British subject being discriminated
against contrary to their possession of an
equality of status implicitly recognised
within the Constitution."

Just to contribute my little bit to sustaining a higher quality of debate on OLO, I feel obliged to confess to the plagiarism I have committed in the first half of that paragraph: the words used were lifted directly without acknowledgement from an earlier OLO article by this author, 'Farewell to an Honourable Jurist', published on 3 February 2009. See: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8497 . The plagiarised words are lifted from the second paragraph of that article.

My unstated hope in committing the plagiarism was that the origin of the words would be recognised by the author and/or other persons interested in the opportunity posed by this case to help dethrone a whole train of 'robustly held misconception' embodied in various pieces of ordinary legislation, such as, for example, the Australia Act 1986 referred to by the author in this article, purporting to constrain 'citizenship' in Australia.

The background of criminality in the case of Clifford Tucker is, I suspect, nothing but a (perhaps intended) distraction for the 'mug public' in order that certain robustly held misconceptions as to permanently resident British citizens rights may be given greater apparent 'force of law'.

Jewely,"Yeah like if they came here and were all bad but from 6 years old?"

Comon, it is not as though a person gets jailed, for 2 years, for a first offence shop lifting or peeing in public. Pretty serious, or repeat offender, to be jailed for 2 years.

Jewely, "That is all official stuff… he’s more Aussie than anyone under 35 years old who was born here I reckon. 4 bloody years – after applying? WHY? Can you get turned down heaps and still stay or is not applying the safer option?"

Getting the permanent residence visa is the most difficult part, as I think you have found out. Having to wait '4 bloody years' after to obtain citizenship is easy. I may be wrong, but I have never heard of a permanent resident being refused citizenship, its a formality. Bit like i can drive a car, but not having a licence is against the law. There are some, including me, that think we should consider a 5 year probationary period after citizenship as well, where it can be withdrawn for serious misconduct. We are the ones offering our hand to a better life. Those that reject that can go elsewhere.

Jewely, "This is saying Australia has no impact on its people, does not shape them or make who they are as adults"

You are saying that our enviroment made them criminals, which is utter bull. The vast majority of people in Aus are not criminals and have no trouble abiding by our laws.

The only problem we have with the likes of Clifford Tucker is that we gave him too many chances earlier on

Banjo,

Under section 34 of the Australian Citizenship Act, the Minister may revoke the citizenship of person who was granted citizenship under the Act. It is only in special circumstances, but you might like to note it. In some cases, the child of a person whose citizenship is revoked also ceases to be a citizen.

The question of what turns a person into a criminal is a matter for research--and I have no expertise in that area. The claim that the environment is responsible is simplistic--but so is the claim that it is utter bull that social circumstances can have an effect. Teenagers for example often start to go astray under the influence of their peers. How they are dealt with, by parents, teachers, other adults and the law appears to be crucial to their subsequent path. Banjo, you must at least be aware of the often made claim by criminologists, that putting a young person in prison where he is in contact with serious criminals is likely to turn him into a more serious criminal. That is an example of how the environment can have an effect.

Banjo:”You are saying that our enviroment made them criminals, which is utter bull. The vast majority of people in Aus are not criminals and have no trouble abiding by our laws.”

I’m saying after 41 years he is a product of this society as much as the law abiding ones are.

“There are some, including me, that think we should consider a 5 year probationary period after citizenship as well, where it can be withdrawn for serious misconduct. We are the ones offering our hand to a better life. Those that reject that can go elsewhere.”

Five years seems fair I reckon. ‘Better life’ is relative. Haven’t found many hands offering much at all but have found one part of Australian society neglected and abused so at least that’s kept me busy in various ways.

My dad sends me those awful e-mail attachments about immigrants to Aussie… he must have forgotten he was one and certainly has forgotten I’m still one.

Imagine if all those poor Forgotten (The Forgotten that the churches were made to apologise to publically) children didn’t have citizenship and because of what the Australian institutionalised care did to them they all got booted as adults.