Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 is to replace the Australian Citizenship Act 1948. Generally it will facilitate dual citizenship and allow people to resume or take up Australian citizenship. It also includes proposals announced by the Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs—in particular, extending the waiting period for citizenship from two years to four years. It includes security checks before citizenship approval and provision for increased personal identifiers such as iris scans. Security risk assessment has to be undertaken by ASIO in order to get citizenship approval. I suppose aspects of this bill do not surprise me, because it involves the Prime Minister imposing his values on the Australian community.

In relation to the extension of the waiting period from two years to four years, an increase from two years to three years was previously flagged after discussion with COAG. But the inference in relation to the extension to four years is that somehow this will help us in relation to the fight against terrorism. I can tell you: terrorist sleepers will wait four years to take out citizenship if that is what is involved in engaging in a terrorist act. I believe it is a retrograde step to go to four years. We have had positive examples of the two-year experience, and I think the case for change has not been made.

The case for change, frankly, is a case that is marketed to the lowest common denominator in our community that thrives on fear and prejudice. It basically takes us back to the old attitudes that this country experienced when the White Australia policy was alive and well and supported by both sides of politics. In my opinion, two years is a sufficient period before someone can take out citizenship, if that is what they want to do. I would suggest that the government would be hard-pressed to bring forward positive examples to support their case for four years. Let’s hear them. Let’s see them. Let’s see where the two-year period has failed us. I do not believe it has. I do not believe it is sufficient to have a policy change of four years that is going to affect people residing in this country.

We should be encouraging people to take out citizenship and we should be avoiding the trap of making it harder. The interesting thing is that the statistics show that citizenship in this country has been taken up in large numbers. DIMIA provided community information summaries which showed, at the 2001 census, the rates of citizenship—the average rate for overseas born people being 75.1 per cent—for the following nationalities: Lebanon, 97 per cent; UK, 65.7 per cent; USA, 64.3 per cent; New Zealand, 36.5 per cent; Vietnam, 96 per cent; and China, 82.6 per cent.

The interesting thing is that, according to the census of 2001, the top birth places of eligible noncitizens were the UK with 36.9 per cent and New Zealand with 21.9 per cent—the ones that were not taking it up were eligible people from Anglo countries. Italy was 4.7 per cent; Malaysia, three per cent; Germany, 2.5 per cent; China, excluding the SARs and Taiwan, 2.2 per cent; the Netherlands, 1.8 per cent; India, 1.7 per cent; Ireland, 1.7 per cent; Indonesia, 1.6 per cent; and others, 22 per cent. So I do not accept that the need to move to four years is justified on the basis of the fear of terrorism. That is garbage.

In relation to the proposal by the parliamentary secretary and the Prime Minister that we have a citizenship test plan and the release of this document and discussion paper Australian citizenship: much more than a ceremony, I would strongly assert that the current requirements are sufficient. We have had a good take-up rate, and to turn around and say again that we will look at the overseas examples and that somehow this is going to make it better under this values test for Australian citizenship is just an absolute fraud that is being perpetrated on the Australian community and, in my view, is again an instance where we are pandering to the prejudice that is out there amongst not all but a section of the Australian community. I say the Australian people deserve better and, when you occupy the prime ministership in this country, we expect leadership. This is not leadership; it is a crass attempt to garnishee votes and, quite frankly, a crass attempt to feed into the worst elements of our society.

What does the United Kingdom use for preparatory testing for citizenship? Here are some questions from that test:

Which of these courts uses a jury system – magistrates, crown, youth or county court?

This is a test for UK citizenship? Other questions are:

Your employer can dismiss you for joining a trade union – true or false?

Which of these telephone numbers can be used to dial the emergency services ... ?

Which of these statements is correct – a television licence is required for each television in a home or a single television licence covers all televisions in a home?

I ask: do we want to adopt this test or something similar for those becoming Australian citizens? Get real; get fair dinkum.

What is Canada’s test? Some of their questions are:

Who are the Aboriginal peoples of Canada?

Where did the first European settlers in Canada come from?

These are reasonable questions. Others are:

What does Confederation mean?

What part of the Constitution legally protects the basic rights and freedoms of all Canadians?

What are the two official languages of Canada?

What does the Canadian flag look like?

What is the population of Canada?

Who is Canada’s Head of State?

How many electoral districts are there in Canada?

What is the capital city or the province or territory in which you live?

I would say that Canadian citizens by birth would have trouble answering a number of those questions let alone people who aspire to be citizens. But the more fundamental question I would ask is: what value does a test like that add to a person actually becoming a Canadian citizen? I think the answer to that is self-evident: none.

The US test questions—and I note these because they are in the parliamentary secretary’s discussion paper and they should be put on the record—include:

What colours are the stripes on the flag? Answer: The stripes on the flag are red and white.

Name the highest part of the Judiciary Branch of our Government? ...

In what year was the Constitution written? ...

Where is the White House located? ...

Which President was the first Commander in Chief of the US military? ...

Write or read aloud “America is the land of the free”, “Only Congress can declare war” or “The teacher was

proud of her class”.

In the Netherlands, the paper says questions include such things as:

the applicant is shown pictures of a man at a post office and asked what does the man need – the options are a passport, bank card or identity card shown in picture format

the applicant is played a recorded message and asked whether the message was a news bulletin or weather forecast

the applicant is shown a picture of a rain cloud and asked to look at the picture and say out loud what the weather is like today.

These are the examples that are contained in the parliamentary secretary’s discussion paper, and they need to be read out to show how ridiculous each and every one of those tests is in each of those countries which say, ‘If you can answer this test, it qualifies you for citizenship of our country.’ To me, what qualifies you for citizenship of a country is something very different. I think it is contained in our citizenship pledge:

From this time forward ...

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its People,

whose democratic beliefs I share,

whose rights and liberties I respect, and

whose laws I will uphold and obey.

That is a pledge to Australia and its people—not to a foreign monarch. That was taken out, which allowed a lot of Irish people to come forward and take out citizenship. But it is a pledge that is simple and yet encapsulates it all. Notwithstanding that, people will take that pledge and not comply with Australia’s laws or Australia’s values. They will breach the law. They will fall into error. But that does not disqualify that particular procedure, which I would argue is the best procedure for this country to adopt. It does not require the necessity of going to the next level of a citizenship test or, indeed, this view of people needing English ability and a more knowledgeable view of the English language before they can take out citizenship of this country.

If we had always applied the test that some people are currently proposing, many people would not have taken out citizenship and many of us would not be here today, because our parents would not have got in in the first place. I defy this Prime Minister, this parliamentary secretary or anyone to argue that those migrants have not made a contribution to this country or that the problems they may have had with English in the first place were not overcome by efforts on their part. True, some people have not gone to the next level, but the next generation also needs to be looked at in terms of the overall package when someone takes out citizenship.

The Hawke and Keating governments poured money and resources into the English language program to encourage people to take up English, to be able to access the workforce and all things within the Australian community. There is no doubt that it is beneficial—and no-one is arguing that it is not—to have a knowledge of the English language. But to have a disqualifier because of it on someone taking out citizenship! A number of kids in our schools would not pass the test if you believed the assertions of some people about the quality of English that is undertaken in our schools.

We need to be very careful that we do not become too self-righteous, too holy and too prescriptive about what it takes to be an Australian citizen, because the greatest thing that this country has had going for it certainly is the postwar migration. The Olympics in Sydney were achieved on the basis of diversity, tolerance and understanding in this country. That is how Australia accumulated the votes to get the Olympics in the year 2000. We were a beacon to the world. Now we are turning on ourselves with this narrow, puritanical view of the world—this view that basically puts English above all else and does not give credit to the quality of the individuals.

We should be out there helping people, encouraging people to become more articulate in the English language, but I tell you what, Mr Deputy Speaker: you will never hear me say that it is a compulsory requirement, that it is what makes you a good citizen or that it is what makes you eligible to become a citizen. I think, quite frankly, that that attitude is the wrong attitude and it is one that should be resisted.

We should be learning from the mistakes of the past. We should be learning from the mistakes of the White Australia policy—the fear of the Chinese, the fear of the yellow hordes that formulated a lot of policy in the early part of the last century. The aliens act saw people having their names and addresses recorded, being photographed and being required to provide their future addresses when they moved to them. There was the fear of the alien and the internment of the alien, where you put everyone into a class.

To me the values have to be universal values, because what is it to be Australian in terms of hopes and aspirations? It is not necessarily knowing Bradman’s score—knowing that his average fell short of 100. It is not our sporting history; it is about putting in. I am a lawyer by trade so, for me, it is about universal values, human rights values, the rule of law. But you do not give someone a legal test before you say, ‘You are good enough to be an Australian citizen.’ That is a disqualifier. As I said, it is quite wrong to hold language up to the rest of the community to say we are going to get better citizens. What you are going to do is disqualify a whole class of people whose forebears, history has shown, made great contributions to this country. You spit in their face. It is a lack of respect and it is a lack of recognition of diversity. It is a narrowness. It is one of the things that has the coalition of the willing in trouble in Iraq.

We should not be going after the human spirit here. We should not be judgemental. We should have a situation where we accept a set of standards and a set of values that are common values and a situation where, if those values are ascribed to, we accept people in good faith. We do not have a presumption of guilt against people because they cannot necessarily speak English as fluently as we do.

I will not go into the history of this country, where certain tests were imposed on a certain person in the thirties to exclude him from this country because he was on the left of the spectrum, because the government back then was worried about his politics. I would ask the government to rethink a few of these things, because they are dead wrong and they are entering into a dark chapter in our history.

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