The Australian Department of Immigration and Multi-cultural Affairs continues to be a law unto itself and insists on setting its own definitions of who can be Australian and who should just get out of here.
After managing to lock up Australian citizen Cornelia Rau as an "illegal" and deporting another Australian citizen to the Philippines, DIMIA now thinks that a man who has lived in Australia virtually all his life should be Serbian.
Last year they deported Robert Jovicic to Serbia even though he had lived in Australia for all but the first two years of his life. His parents were from Serbia, so fair enough let's get rid of him, says the Department. Jocivic had a criminal record, has had mental illness and physical health problems so obviously he does not belong here.
The fact that Jovicic is not recognised by Serbia as one of their citizens, does not speak any language other than English and could not work there clearly did not cause any concern in DIMIA. After months of sleeping on the Australian Embassy doorstep, DIMIA lured him back to Australia with the promise of permanent residency. But on his arrival in Sydney, they tell him "Sorry, you've got a month to apply for Serbian citizenship, or else."
The Serbs don't want him, DIMIA!
It is time that this feral department was called to account.
A man who has lived for nearly all of his life in this country is Australian, even if he forgot to formalise his status because it never occurred to him that he was anything other than Australian.
If the Immigration Department can determine that the Bakhtiari family came from Pakistan and not Afghanistan on the basis of their accents, then the same should apply in Jovicic's case... if he has an Aussie accent then he must belong here.
This is supposed to be the Land of the Fair Go. It's time to show some compassion to those who don't fit into the neat little boxes that the immigration bureaucrats like.
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