Sarah Rimmer

This book explains how considering the impact on future generations drives good governance and better policy outcomes and why it is time for Australia to embrace intergenerational fairness. We explore proposals to support intergenerational equity through policymaking, including emulating The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act adopted in Wales in 2015. A Welsh-style Act would embed the protection of future generations into Australian legislation. We consider what it would look like if we placed intergenerational justice at the forefront of our policy making, and what that would mean for all life on this continent. This is an urgent quest to reorient policymaking. Globally, we are in a state of polycrisis, emerging out of the pandemic to cascading climate crises, and several intense regional conflicts and geostrategic competition. In response to this, a growing global movement representing the interests of future generations has emerged.

This Discussion Paper describes the rise of character provisions in Commonwealth laws over the last 10 years. The use of character testing has increased in traditional areas, such as migration and citizenship, and has moved into new areas of law, such as the employment of persons in critical industries and criminal law. The first time character testing has been examined in a thematic way across several legal and policy subject areas, the paper finds that character tests are often framed in subjective terms and are part of executive decision-making, raising issues of transparency and accountability. This phenomenon has been incremental, which is why it is important to pause and reflect on the changes over the last decade. Because of changes to migration and citizenship laws over the last decade and the expanded reach of new counter-terrorism laws, failing a character test can lead to detention, deportation, and a denial of citizenship. A person can be rendered stateless, permanently locked out of a profession as an aviation worker or pilot, or put on trial for a terrorist offence. In this way, someone else’s assessment of a person’s character can now define that person’s destiny as never before.

Character issues are of increasing importance in the role of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in assessing the national security risk posed by aliens. For example, ASIO assessments underpinned the long-term detention of two Iraqi refugees on Nauru, and the deportation of US activist Mr Scott Parkin. This article considers how ASIO national security assessments are made, whether they constitute a form of character testing, and what accountability mechanisms are in place to challenge such assessments.