Tasmanian Times received the following letter from Walter Abetz, brother of Eric Abetz. Senator Abetz is Leader of the Government in the Senate, Minister for Employment. Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service and Liberal Senator for Tasmania.
Tasmanian Times reproduces, without comment, the interchange between Walter Abetz and John Hawkins.
• Initial letter received from Walter Abetz:
Dear Editor,
When I visited your website today I noticed an advertisement by John Hawkins congratulating my brother for relinquishing dual citizenship in 2010.
I have documentary proof of that my brother Erich never had dual citizenship.
I therefore suggest that you withdraw the advertisement on your webpage because it is untrue.
John Hawkins’ nonsense has gone on for long enough.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Abetz.
• John Hawkins’ reply:
Dear Mr Abetz,
Thankyou for your most interesting email regarding your brother Erich who failed or was unable to produce this documentation at the High Court hearing.
He did however produce a document that proved that he had renounced his German citizenship in 2010.
The German government will not allow me to renounce a German citizenship that I obviously do not have.
Ipso Facto up until the moment your brother Erich Abetz received the Renunciation Certificate of his German citizenship in March 2010 he was still a German citizen for no one however clever they are can renounce a citizenship that they do not have.
The production of this Certificate of Renunciation by Senator Erich Abetz ensured that I withdrew my case before the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns as for the 2010 election to the Senate, Senator Erich Abetz was certainly not a dual national and he could prove it.
This is not the case for earlier elections held in 1998 and 2004 but they were time barred to me for appeal to the Court of Disputed Returns as being outside a 40 day period.
Your brother Erich Abetz was not elected in 1994 but filled a casual vacancy.
An objector over an elected persons citizenship can only make a challenge to the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns within 40 days of an election.
Your brother has never been able to supply evidence of renunciation for 1994, 1998 and 2004.
If he had evidence in his, or his family possession, why was it never supplied as requested by me causing me to take the matter to the High Court hence his renunciation in 2010?
I note that you have the earlier required evidence and I look forward to receipt.
The production of this verifiable proof of Renunciation of German Citizenship before 1994 for your brother Erich Abetz will ensure that the advertisement will be immediately removed.
Best wishes,
John Hawkins
• There followed emails on how to conduct the correspondence; whether directly or through the Editor.
Dear Walter,
Mr Hawkins wishes to conduct all correspondence through the Editor and I attach his reply for your consideration.
Dear Mr Abetz,
This is now and has been for a long time a public matter of concern to many people regarding the integrity of public figures and their right to represent us in Parliament.
You have raised the subject of my advertisement with the Editor of Tasmanian Times.
This is a paid for advertisement as displayed on his internet newspaper placed at considerable cost to myself over a number of years.
This advertisement has never been subject to comment by your brother Senator Erich Abetz.
If you have evidence which for some reason was not produced to the High Court Mr Tuffin should accept your offer and publish this on Tasmanian Times in the public interest.
Your brother was made by the judge in the High Court to pay his costs despite my withdrawing the case.
This possibly unique situation may be considered as a reflection on the non production, prior to the sitting of the Court, of vital evidence over the date of the renunciation of his citizenship in 2010, which as a result wasted the courts time.
It could be suggested that he did not wish the date of his renunciation to be made public as it compromised his situation over sitting legally as a Senator in the Senate from 1994.
I am sure your brother will be greatly relieved to discover that you have the vital evidence that will clear him of any possible wrongdoing.
This matter is currently most topical as our current Prime Minister Mr Abbott appears to have a similar problem; he is apparently embroiled in a shirt-fronting exercise over the same problem that afflicts Senator Abetz in that he cannot or will not produce his Renunciation Certificate of British citizenship.
Is this new enquiry of me the start of an effort to close down any further debate on such matters?
Maybe when the proposed new State Liberal SLAPP legislation is introduced we Tasmanians can contemplate the joys of a SLAPP suit against pollies who seemingly operate outside the law.
John Hawkins
• Further letter from Walter Abetz:
Dear Mr Hawkins,
You obviously dislike my brother and leave no legal stone unturned to remove him from the political scene. That is the essence of democracy. My hope is that the importance of history and provenance resonates with you as an antiquarian dealer in spite of your dislike. Let me give you a quick sketch of the facts and the circumstances.
Erich is 10 years younger than I. When I became an Australian Citizen in June 1971, the oath of allegiance to the Queen and her successors required me to renounce all other allegiances.
If my memory serves me right, my brother Erich became an Australian Citizen on the same day as my mother, on the 3rd December, 1974 in Hobart. I did not attend the ceremony because I was teaching in Launceston at the time. My mother’s Certificate of Australian Citizenship shows that Jan Urbanski certified that “on the day and at the place mentioned below [above in this case], the grantee of this certificate appeared before me AND SWORE AN OATH of allegiance in the manner prescribed by the Australian Citizenship Act 1948-73.” Erich had forgotten that his Certificate had these details on the back of his framed Certificate.
While on the Australian side in 1974, one no longer had to swear allegiance to Her Majesty, the Queen and her successors, West Germany still did not allow dual citizenship status, as a little research will show.
Perhaps the Department of Labour and Immigration failed to inform the German Consulate of this Naturalisation Ceremony. Or the German Consulate was at fault. The fact is that my mother was not asked to hand in her passport, as it is still in my possession. That passport expired on 21st July 1976. Erich had not yet attained the age of 16 in 1971. So he was entered as a child on page 2 of that passport. As my mother’s passport was not renewed in 1976, the validity of that entry lapsed on 21st July 1976.
From their WW II experience my parents thought it appropriate to have Erich entered in both their passports in 1971. So his name appears in both passports. My father applied for an early renewal of his passport at the end of January 1976. Erich, now 18, was to be deleted from that passport (per entry on page 7), and on 26th February 1976 my father’s passport was extended for a further five years to be valid until 21st July 1981. When Erich was deleted from my father’s passport, Erich was not issued a passport in his own right. That is why the consulate has no record of a returned passport. He was not entitled to one, by West German rules, because he was an Australian Citizen, and West Germany did not countenance dual citizenship. All documentary claims to Erich’s German citizenship ended on 21st July 1976 (if the German Consulate took no action, as the silence of their records indicates).
My father died in 1980 and my mother in 1983. We, their children have kept some of the documentation regarding the progressive naturalization of the family. My father died a German citizen. He was in receipt of a part pension (as an invalid) from West Germany until his death. .
With regard to your view of Erich’s “renunciation of dual citizenship” there is a logical problem. Let us perform a thought experiment. Let us consider wife-beating instead of dual citizenship. If you ask me “Have you stopped beating your wife?” and require me to answer with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, .I am in a very awkward situation. The questioner presumes that I am beating my wife, which, however, may not be the case. If I answer ‘no’ (because I never started beating my wife, and logically, therefore cannot stop) I will be misunderstood by many and condemned as a wife beater. If I answer ‘yes’, everyone will say, “So he once was a wife-beater after all!” If one has only the two choices, my preference would be to answer with a ‘yes’ – so people know that I am not beating my wife now (especially if there is an amnesty for past actions!)
Let us return to the dual citizenship question. “Have you renounced your dual citizenship, yes or no?” is a similarly unfair question. The prior question needs to be, “Have you ever been granted or have you ever applied for dual citizenship?”. In Erich’s case the answer is a clear ‘no’. When the matter was to come before the High Court, Erich contacted me and asked about my recollection of matters surrounding his naturalisation. He had not been aware of the still extant passports of my parents. As it would require considerable expense to argue any case before the High Court, especially in a case where
(a) the German Consulate held no records of “dual citizenship”, and
(b) the German Consulate held no records of the return of Erich’s German passport {which he never had),
the simplest thing from the legal; perspective was to formally renounce (again) his former West German citizenship.
Granted, a ‘de facto’ dual citizenship may have occurred for 20 months between 3rd December 1974 and 21st July 1976, due to his mother not relinquishing her passport and his father not having his passport amended earlier. It is, however, unreasonable to expect a 16 to 18 year-old to be responsible for the return of his mother’s or father’s passport, when he is not the custodian of these passports.
To present this argument before the High Court at the last minute would have cost more money and precious time. Erich and I came to the conclusion that it was much easier, to renounce a non-existent dual citizenship, as no legal consequences arose about past eligibility just in case people misunderstood his action. You were entitled to buy some political mileage from misunderstanding our time-and-money-saving gambit.
Five years later I now appeal to you to look beyond your obvious dislike of my brother and to act on the requirements of logic and a sense of fairness, to quietly withdraw the inappropriate advertisement.
Let me add that I fully support your right to query the eligibility of intending politicians and will oppose any attempts to remove that democratic right. Furthermore, Britain allows dual citizenship, West Germany did not. I support your right to explore Mr Abbott’s eligibility.
Kind regards,
Walter Abetz
• John Hawkins’ reply:
To the Editor,
This is a most interesting letter and this is my reply for publication:
Erich Abetz in reply to my queries over his citizenship always stated that he could prove that he had renounced his German citizenship prior to taking up his seat for he had written to the relevant authorities.
The inference was that this was in 1994 not in 2010.
The exposure of the date being 2010 only came about as a result of the High Court Hearing.
A passport is a travel document, it does not denote citizenship.
A specific requirement of the Commonwealth Constitution 44(i) states that a person may not retain their seat in Parliament unless they have renounced their allegiance to a foreign power.
Erich Abetz was a German born naturalized Australian holding dual citizenship when he entered parliament.
To enter or remain in parliament Abetz must have formally written a Letter of Renunciation to the relevant German authority and received a letter in return acknowledging this renunciation.
Your brother was and still is unable to produce these two documents.
The result is that your brother sat illegally in the Senate from 1994 until he renounced his citizenship in 2010.
This situation can only be remedied when he can produce the two documents mentioned above which predate his 1994 entry into Parliament.
I am leaving Abbott to others.
Best wishes,
John Hawkins
