Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell in custody as deportation calls mount

Calls grow for neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell’s deportation, but strict citizenship laws make removal unlikely. Dr Abul Rizvi reports.

AFTER HIS PARTICIPATION in the anti-immigration marches and attack on an Indigenous protest site in Melbourne, a petition calling for National Socialist Network leader Thomas Sewell’s deportation has reportedly secured over 100,000 signatures. Peter Van Onselen, writing for the Daily Mail, has expressed disbelief at Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s explanation that the current law doesn’t allow for the deportation of neo-Nazis.

Sewell is currently in custody, facing a variety of charges relating to his violent actions. These may or may not lead to a gaol sentence of 12 months or more. We shall have to wait and see.

Sewell was reportedly born in New Zealand and migrated to Australia at a very early age, and has spent most of his life in Australia. If he has not taken out Australian citizenship, then the Character provisions of the Migration Act could be used to cancel his visa based on the gaol sentence or because he represents a risk to public safety in Australia (but not based on his political beliefs). He could then be deported to NZ, although that would need to be negotiated with NZ.

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Most media reports suggest he is a dual NZ/Australian citizen. That makes his deportation much more difficult unless he lied on his application for Australian citizenship. There is no publicly available evidence that he did so.

If he did not lie on his citizenship application form, then the rules around cancellation of his citizenship are very strict. Section 36D of the Citizenship Act allows the minister to apply to a court for an order to cease a person’s Australian citizenship.

The Act (Section 36C) states that the court may make an order to cease a person’s Australian citizenship if:

the person is aged 14 years or over;
the person is a dual national;
the person has been convicted of one or more serious offences;
the court has imposed a period or periods of imprisonment that total at least three years or more; and
the conduct the offence relates to is so serious and significant that it demonstrates that the person has repudiated their allegiance to Australia.

Serious offences specified in the Act, are provided under the Criminal Code and include:

certain terrorism offences including breaches of Extended Supervision Orders and Interim Supervision Orders;
treason;
espionage;
foreign interference;
advocating mutiny;
foreign incursions and recruitment offences; and
certain explosives and lethal devices offences.

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In deciding whether a person’s conduct is so serious and significant that it demonstrates they have repudiated their allegiance to Australia, the court must consider:

whether the person has engaged in conduct that demonstrates a repudiation of the values, democratic beliefs, rights and liberties which underpin Australian society;
the degree, duration or scale of the person’s commitment to, or involvement in, the conduct constituting to which the offence relates;
the intended scale of the conduct to which the conviction relates;
the actual impact of the conduct to which the conviction relates; and
whether the conduct caused, or was intended to cause, harm to human life or a loss of human life.

While Sewell’s actions may meet some of these requirements, they certainly don’t meet them all. Sewell’s actions would not meet the fourth and fifth requirements of s36C. Any application to a court for cessation of Sewell’s citizenship would fail.

Some have advocated that citizenship law should be amended to enable the cessation of citizenship of those who express and advocate neo-Nazi beliefs. But Australia is well past the point in its history where we ban certain political beliefs (such as attempts to ban the Communist Party in the 1950s). That would be a very slippery slope.

Sewell will now be charged by the police for his violent actions. That will be considered by a court and if found guilty, he will serve whatever sentence he is given. That is how it should be.

Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.