The petition was turbo-charged by the widespread media coverage on Sewell over the past two days, with its organiser noting 42,500 people had signed in the 32 hours to last night.<\/p>\n
Petition organisers have called for reforms to the Australian Citizenship Act to allow courts to revoke citizenship for \u201cserious post-citizenship\u201d offences.<\/p>\n
They said the current laws made it \u201cnearly impossible to revoke citizenship from violent extremists even when they hold dual nationality and pose a clear threat to public safety\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law protects citizenship as a near-untouchable status, even in cases of hate-fuelled violence, racial intimidation and ideological extremism,\u201d organiser Constitutional Reformist wrote.<\/p>\n
Petition organisers seek reforms to revoke citizenship for serious post-citizenship offences, highlighting challenges with current laws. Photo \/ @aborlandfan88 via X<\/p>\n
\u201cReform is not just possible, it\u2019s essential.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, they said the \u201cwave of support\u201d the petition has attracted showed \u201cmy people are not alone\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are tens of thousands who stand beside us, who believe in justice, and who are willing to act.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immigration Minister Tony Burke said on Wednesday Sewell \u201cclearly hates modern Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised if he renounces his citizenship here anyway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
High Court decisions in 2022 and 2023, including one that upheld the citizenship of terrorist Abdul Benbrika, found a minister cannot revoke citizenship for post-citizenship conduct.<\/p>\n
Under the Act, Australian citizenship may only be considered in limited circumstances when a person has acquired citizenship via application.<\/p>\n
Those include making a false statement as part of the application, failing to disclose a serious crime committed before becoming a citizen or if citizenship was acquired as a result of third party fraud.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday morning, Sewell called Allan a \u201ccoward\u201d and shouted \u201cHeil Australia\u201d during a press conference in West Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people like me take power, these people are going to be punished for the crimes they have committed against Australia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Premier later said it was \u201ca badge of honour\u201d that Nazi \u201cgoons\u201d oppose \u201cme and my government\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sewell had been appearing in court this week facing a hearing on charges of intimidating a police officer, and breaching a personal safety intervention order.<\/p>\n
He was arrested outside the courthouse on Tuesday afternoon in front of news cameras over the King\u2019s Domain incident.<\/p>\n
Two other men, aged 23 and 20, were also arrested over the same incident and will front court on September 10.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He has not entered any pleas and was remanded in custody to face Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[132,85,115,124,116,125,127,121,71,129,120,123,130,126,119,117,111,43,69,128,114,133,131,113,61,122,80,118],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-132","tag-australia","tag-calls","tag-could","tag-deport","tag-deported","tag-despite","tag-fail","tag-from","tag-gaining","tag-likely","tag-melbourne","tag-more","tag-native","tag-neonazi","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-nz","tag-petition","tag-sewell","tag-signatures","tag-than","tag-thomas","tag-to","tag-unlikely","tag-zealand","tag-zealandborn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}