Constitutional Criteria Informing Membership of the Australian Political Community

The Australian Constitution ‘summoned the Australian nation into existence’, thereby creating a new federal body politic. The High Court has grappled with questions about who comprises that body politic since Federation, including in cases concerning the relationship between citizenship and alienage, and the extent of the Commonwealth Parliament’s powers to define and revoke Australian citizenship, to exclude aliens and immigrants from Australia, and to regulate the electoral franchise. These issues have frequently provoked deep divisions in the Court. This article provides a framework for understanding the relationship between three constitutional concepts that together provide the constitutional foundations for the Australian political community: ‘aliens’, ‘the people’, and ‘electors’.