Expendable Australians (2022) | Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Peter Greste, Ian Kemish & Sangeetha Pillai

We all have assumptions of what citizenship means. However, in
recent years we are starting to see the envelop pushed with more
common law rights being taken away. From Australia shutting its
doors during the pandemic to authoritarian regimes acquiring the
habit of turning travellers into political prisoners, where is it
becoming too dangerous to go? And if an Australian passport does
not protect you, what are you owed by your government? 


Kylie Moore-Gilbert is a scholar of Middle Eastern and Islamic
Studies. She was falsely charged with espionage and imprisoned in
Iran from September 2018 to November 2020 before being released
in a prisoner exchange deal negotiated by the Australian
government.


Peter Greste is a journalist, author, media freedom activist and
professor at Macquarie University. Before joining academia in
2018, he spent 25 years as a correspondent in the Middle East,
Latin America and Africa. In 2013, he and two colleagues were
arrested in Cairo on terrorism charges. They were convicted and
sentenced to seven years in a case regarded as an attack on press
freedom. Egypt released Peter after 400 days, and he has since
become a press freedom advocate.


Ian Kemish AM served as Australian High Commissioner to Papua New
Guinea, Ambassador to Germany, Head of the Prime Minister’s
international division, and Head of the consular service in a
diplomatic career that spanned twenty-five years. He is an
adjunct professor in history at the University of Queensland, a
non-resident fellow with the Lowy Institute, a director of the
Australia–Indonesia Centre and an Honorary Fellow of Deakin
University.


Dr Sangeetha PIllai is a constitutional lawyer and a Senior
Research Associate at the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for
International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney. She is an expert on
Australian citizenship law and the scope of government power over
citizens and non-citizens. She has published widely on this
topic, and is a regular commentator on legal issues relating to
citizenship, immigration and refugees in a range of media
outlets.