492 Melbourne University Law Review [Vol 40:456 and similar activities,213 treachery214 and sabotage.215 The person must have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least six years.216 This provision can apply retrospectively where a person has been sentenced to ten or more years’ imprisonment by a court.217 These provisions apply regardless of how a person became an Australian citizen, including by birth. In terms of age, they apply to children,218 but only the third scenario requires consideration of ‘the best interests of the child as a primary consideration’ at the stage of revocation.219 This is despite the fact that Australia has a duty under the Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure that ‘[i]n all actions concerning children … the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.’220 The reason for the omission of this consideration in the constructive renunciation categories is practical: the renunciation takes effect ‘immediately upon the person engaging in the [relevant] conduct’,221 or ‘at the time the person commences to so serve or fight.’222 In other words, it is automatically triggered by particular conduct. Any such consideration could therefore only occur at a later stage (if the Minister were to contemplate rescinding the revocation). However, that might never occur given that ‘[t]he Minister does not have a duty to consider whether to exercise the power’ to rescind, even if requested to do so.223 Article 8(3) of the 1961 Convention provides that a state may deprive a person of nationality in circumstances relating to disloyalty, even where this would render the person stateless, but only if the state made a declaration to that effect at the time of accession to the treaty, which Australia did not do. 212 Ibid sch 1 s 80.1AA. 213 Ibid sch 1 s 91.1. 214 Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 24AA. 215 Ibid s 24AB. 216 Citizenship Act s 35A(1)(b). 217 Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Parliament of Australia, Human Rights Scrutiny Report: Thirty-Sixth Report of the 44th Parliament (2016) 74--5 [2.249]. 218 In the automatic revocation case, they apply to children 14 or over: Citizenship Act ss 33AA(1), 35(1). The conviction provisions do not specify an age, but because they require conviction, the usual age of responsibility would presumably apply: at s 35A(1)(a). As the Parliamentary Joint Committee notes, the offences listed in s 35A ‘apply to children aged over 10 years of age’: ibid 77 [2.262]. 219 Citizenship Act s 35A(1)(e)(iv). 220 Convention on the Rights of the Child art 3(1). 221 Citizenship Act s 33AA(9). 222 Ibid s 35(2). 223 Ibid ss 33AA(15), 35(10).