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Revision as of 03:08, 11 June 2022 by AaronRichard (talk | contribs) (→Citizenship and potential Section 44 issues)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Fatima Payman is an Australian politician who was elected to the Australian Senate at the 2022 Australian federal election. She will take up her seat on 1 July 2022.
Early life and family
Payman was born in Afghanistan around 1995, arriving in Australia as a refugee in 2003 aged 8 years old and settling in Perth.
Her father had already arrived in Australia via boat in 1999, fleeing the Taliban. After leaving immigration detention, her father worked as a security guard, kitchen hand and taxi driver, in order to earn enough money to sponsor his wife and four children to also migrate. Once in Australia, her mother started a business giving driving lessons.
Payman's grandfather was also a member of parliament in Afghanistan.
Citizenship and potential Section 44 issues
Payman was naturalised as an Australian citizen in 2005, although this did not automatically revoke her Afghan citizenship. As Section 44 of the Constitution of Australia requires all candidates to be a citizen of Australia only, she approached the Afghanistan embassy in Australia in October 2021 to renounce her Afghan citizenship. She was told she had followed the correct steps, but the embassy could not finalise it because it had no contact with the new Taliban government that seized control of the country in August.
The ALP received legal advice that Payman was nevertheless still eligible to be elected, as she had taken all reasonable steps to renounce her Afghan citizenship, noting that the Afghan Embassy in Australia did not even know whether the various departments and officers who would be tasked with processing her application in Kabul even exist anymore, following the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.
References
- Clure, Elias (23 May 2022). "Could this election be a turning point for cultural representation in parliament?". ABC News. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
- "'Work in progress': Australia's new parliament the most diverse yet". the Guardian. 23 May 2022. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
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