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Mentioning that they may need to shut down services in Australia due to the law might be enough to cause a backlash.
Our left-leaning party voted for this fucking bullshit too, remember. Jacinda Ardern probably isn't going to save you.
To do that you really need to know what the law actually says and requires. Here is a start: TCN/TAN are not limited to Australian citizens. Revoking your citizenship will not shield you from being issued a TCN/TAN, but will lessen the value of your voice in engineering change.
That has nothing to do with whether you are an Australian citizen or not. If you are a resident in Austria, these laws do not allow the government to compel you to commit a crime in Austria.
Keep this in mind: The Australian government is still ripping children from their parents.
If software that I am involved in is in any way responsible for assisting that, in any way, I would be more than furious to say the least.
Nope, its Option #2 for me. Australia can go to hell.
And if they do try it, any of your non-Australian colleagues who review your code can immediately raise the alarm.
The law is ridiculous not only because of all the points they're making, but also because it just doesn't work in a modern, distributed, company. They need to compel the entire dev team to do as they wish to avoid it being stopped at some point, and if just one of those devs are not Australian (or even not living in Australia) then the secrecy part is blown and the company can take preventative action to stop this happening.
Australia has just ensured that every single Australian tech company needs a non-Australian to review its code. An absolute decrease in Australian security. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes agan.
Okay, so this just pushes the problem onto someone elses plate - the operator/sysadmin. I've known a few Australian operators. The law doesn't specifically target 'only people who can write code' - it applies to anyone who has access to the systems the Australian kooks and spooks want to infiltrate.
If you're already overseas (including NZ), it should be a pretty easy ride:
"You may be eligible to apply if you ... will acquire citizenship of another country as soon as your application to renounce Australian citizenship is approved" [0]
From what I remember, there's basically an agreement between all countries stating that a stateless person in your borders must be offered safe harbour... or something to that affect, and that might be triggering the "We will not approve your application to renounce your citizenship if you do not have another foreign citizenship" spiel.
Talk to a lawyer to get it straight though.
[0] https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/citizenship/give-up-citizens...
So I feel strongly enough about the tyranny and evil of the Australian government that it looks like I'm going to be giving up my Australian citizenship.
Oh, wait:
"We will not approve your application to renounce your citizenship if you do not have another foreign citizenship or it is not in Australia’s interests." [emphasis added]
What an extraordinarily evil thing for the Australian government to have done to its citizens.
Well then, some other options:
0. Do the typical Australian thing: "she'll be right mate!", and stick my head in the sand, hoping that ignoring the bad man will make him go away. This seems to work for a lot of Australians, so might work for me. Could be, I'll never be the subject of a TAN/TCN, but then again, why risk it.
1. I could change my profession. However, this would mean that over time, only the types of people who are willing to act as repressive agents of the Australian government would be found in the software industry. This is really a non-savoury outcome, as I have over 30 years in the software industry and am very proud of the good I have done in this field - I would hate to turn it over to such cunts who think its fine to spy for the Australian Fascist Overlords. I know they're out there - people like me are keeping them from taking over, completely.
(A brief moment of brevity for the poor Australians reading this: Fuck. The Australian Government is literally Auntie Jack. If I don't do what she tells me to, she's gonna jump out of my computer and rip my bloody arms off. [1])
2. Do the paperwork: get my second citizenship, abandon the Australian citizenship, do everything I can to protest Australia and never, ever, contribute to its well-being ever again - this means never going back, removing my assets and resources from the Australian economy, and so on. Hmmm.
3. Submit to a TAN/TCN when/if it happens, but somehow sabotage the work such that it doesn't quite work out. The True Aussie Way™.
4. Insist on working only on software that never tracks the user in any way, whatsoever. This would mean quitting my current job, which already involves tracking people (with their full approval) for productive (non-espionage/law-enforcement) purposes, and finding something with a strict no-data policy.
I guess I'm gonna go with #4. Well, #2 seems a bit more appealing, actually.
Please, I beg of you .. let me walk tall in Australia! [2]
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[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnEOr1MgwTM
[2] - https://youtu.be/8PfDro1UGUo?t=158