The reliance placed on formal legal documentation in Australian legal and administrative systems is often problematic for stateless people, who may have been excluded from obtaining basic documents (such as birth registration documents) that citizens may take for granted. Proving statelessness is therefore akin to ‘proving a negative’. The value placed on identity documentation was also highlighted by stateless people interviewed for this report. “You can’t prove something that doesn’t exist. You’re stateless, you’re without a nationality and the proof is that you do not have those documents that you are meant to have if you’re a citizen of a country.” … For me, it’s very important to always be represented properly on paper. Not just by word. I need it in documentation, because this is what they don’t want me to have in Burma. They want to erase us not just from the country, but also from papers, history, and from anything where it shows our existence. If I have papers saying I existed during this time. It proves something at least. I at least existed in this one context. This is who I am.” — Ahmad Sawan, Australian Legal Practitioner, Refugee Advice Casework Service The absence of a statutory definition or SDP has meant that not only a person’s statelessness status but also their identity may be contested. The connection between statelessness and identity is highlighted in internal Department guidelines for decision-making, which state that: ‘[s]tatelessness is not defined in the Migration Act and there is no legislative basis for making a determination of whether an applicant is stateless. Instead, assessing claims of statelessness is an administrative process closely linked to establishing identity …’ Consistent with this, case law reveals a trend of a disavowal of a stateless person’s identity to justify visa cancellations or refusal decisions, reflecting a conflation of independent issues. “Our administrative systems are heavily built on documentation, particularly to support identity, and in many cases they (stateless people) won’t necessarily have it.” — Policy Worker One of the most persistent legal challenges experienced by stateless people is the difficulty they have in proving or substantiating their identity due to a lack of documentation (or recognised documentation). “The administrative side of any visa process is so heavily based on, “Do you have a driver’s licence? Do you have a passport? Do you have traditional Australian style documents that we can provide for this police clearance?” and if you don’t have that, it’s really difficult for them (stateless people).” — Australian Legal Practitioner “No matter how confident you are about who you are, people still won’t see you the way you want them to see you because you don’t have all the right documents and papers. That’s what’s frustrating. — Asma Interviewees described how individuals are required to meet different evidentiary standards across visa applications, citizenship processes, and judicial review processes. These standards are often inconsistent across government departments and change over time, meaning a person may satisfy one test but not another and may be reassessed at various points in time. This was observed as having a significant negative impact on stateless people in Australia, often exacerbating trauma. “Just going back and reading through all of the response to the request for information and the persistent questioning by Home Affairs about her citizenship and having to go over that story again and again and again, it would just be exhausting and if it’s combined with trauma, just reliving that every single time you have to go to your lawyer’s office or every time that you have to respond to something, that impact is just extraordinary.” — Australian Legal Practitioner The consequences of perceived false statements concerning identity or the provision of invalid or forged documents are severe, including visa refusal or cancellation. “I guess that ties into discussions around evidentiary requirements for stateless people, and that onus. And these are people that have already got their visa, so it’s putting them through a whole other process of requiring documents, and often the Department will ask them all the same questions again in citizenship, and ask for all these things that they’ve already got. And it’s like, “Well, I’ve told you five years ago—I’ve given you what I’ve got, and now you’re taking a thousand days to look at what I’ve got.” So, and it’s really punitive….it’s really, really punitive for stateless people.’ — Natalie Young, Australian Legal Practitioner, Victoria Legal Aid Understanding Statelessness in Australia | Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness 39