ABSTRACT
In the discourse of rights, citizenship is never far behind. This chapter argues that rights and citizenship, are far from inseparable. Citizenship and rights, or legal entitlements, have not, historically, been co-extensive. Many other rights, such as voting, serving on juries and standing for parliament, have never been available to all who hold legal citizenship. Printed on the first page of Australian passports is a statement that the Governor-General 'requests all those to whom it may concern' to, among other things, 'afford every assistance and protection of which he or she may stand in need'. The case of the communist journalist, Wilfred Burchett, is a notable example, and it is worth describing, as an illustration in practice of the dissociation between citizenship and rights. For many advocates of citizenship rights, the ideal is to place them beyond the reach of government, entrenched in the Constitution.
