454 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:401 Accordingly, an identical status should be granted to stateless persons. As McAdam notes, ‘[t]his approach is also consistent with the Government’s visa rationalisation programme’,287 and reduces the chances of people appealing their status. Finally, the 1954 Convention does not permit states to exclude persons from recognition as stateless persons simply because they have given up their nationality voluntarily. However, while the matter of free choice is irrelevant to determining eligibility, it may ‘be pertinent to the matter of the treatment received thereafter’, since they may be able to reacquire that nationality.288 In the unlikely event that a person were to voluntarily renounce his or her nationality solely for the purpose of claiming protection as a stateless person in Australia,289 ‘the legislation could stipulate that protection would not be forthcoming if the individual could recover his or her former nationality within a reasonable period of time.’290 McAdam suggests that: What is considered ‘reasonable’ will depend on all the circumstances of the case, including whether or not [the applicant] is in immigration detention (and if [the applicant] is, then a shorter timeframe is appropriate), whether nationality can be automatically reacquired, the circumstances in which the person will live pending that determination, and so on.291 In some cases, whether or not renunciation was, in fact, ‘voluntary’ would need to be very carefully scrutinised. V II C O N C LU S I O N In this article, we have begun the process of highlighting the predicament and protection needs of stateless persons in Australia. As a traditionally overlooked and radically under-explored phenomenon, there is very little information about the numbers of stateless persons who have arrived in Australia, and little by way of academic research or scholarship exploring their plight. 287 McAdam, ‘Position Paper’, above n 238, 9 [42]. See also Department of Immigration and Citizenship (Cth), Draft Complementary Protection Visa Model, above n 284, 4. 288 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, above n 20, 21 [51]; see also at 56 [161]–[162]. 289 See generally UNHCR, Prato Conclusions, above n 136, 4 [20]. 290 McAdam, ‘Position Paper’, above n 238, 7 [30]. See also Gábor Gyulai, Statelessness in Hungary: The Protection of Stateless Persons and the Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness (Hungarian Helsinki Committee, 2010) 15. 291 McAdam, ‘Position Paper’, above n 238, 7 [30].