Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Testing) Bill 2007. The key provisions of this bill will amend section 21 of the act so that applicants for citizenship under the general eligibility provision must have successfully completed a test before making an application for Australian citizenship. In standing to support this bill, I would like to make mention of the fact that it is very important to emphasise that this is not a test for settlement; it is not a test precluding people from coming to Australia. People can still be permanent residents. They can stay with that status for the term of their existence in Australia. But, if they want to progress further and become a citizen of Australia, they will have to undertake this citizenship test.

I have thought long and hard about this, because I too have an electorate which has welcomed people from many nations from across the world. All of these people have contributed in some way, shape or form to the Riverina blossoming into the very productive area that it is now. Many of the people who came and worked on the Snowy were displaced during the European war. They came out to Australia, worked on the Snowy and then made their way down to the Riverina. They increased productivity and exposed our culture to entirely new tastes and experiences, and we have been far the greater for having had those experiences. I thought very seriously about whether or not this would be a major impediment to people who want to come and set up their life in the Riverina. So I talked to a lot of Italian people who had come in. At first, it was a bit daunting and a bit scary for them, because they thought that this meant that people would not be able to settle in Australia. It was explained that this would not stop people from settling in Australia but would be a citizenship test and, if they wanted to take out Australian citizenship, they would have tools made available to assist them, including a booklet. It was explained that it was not an English language test or a test on how you speak English but a test of an applicant’s understanding of the history of Australia and of the values that should be in every person’s mind when they seek to declare themselves to be an Australian citizen.

I went to a small school just a few months ago and they made the Australian pledge, and they do it at every assembly. What a fantastic idea. These children knew the Australian pledge off by heart. That is something that we could expand further in our education programs in order to enhance the feeling of pride and passion in being an Australian citizen.

When I went through these issues with some of the Italian elder community, many of them said to me, ‘Gee, we wish that we’d had this available to us and that we’d been assisted in learning these things when we came to Australia, because our lives would have been much more inclusive of the Australian way of life and we would not have at times felt excluded because of our lack of understanding of the Australian way.’ There is no doubt that sometimes the Australian way is very different to the culture that people have travelled from. I have in my life five beautiful children from Ethiopia. My children have now been here for four years—in fact, it is four years today since they arrived in Australia. I have found that their commitment and dedication and the effort that they have made to ensure that they are able to participate fully in education has been fantastic. My children are getting older and they have no foundation of education from their grassroots in Ethiopia. But they have a great will to learn in Australia. They have come from an almost impossible situation, but they are doing very well and their English is fantastic.

My children are being confronted with understanding life and its meaning. I am sure my five-year-old will rule the world one day because he has been learning in pre-school from the day that he came to Australia. He is very established in Australian ethos, ethics and the way in which he insists on all English being spoken at home because he is an Australian. It becomes quite jovial in our household. But, at the same time, I know this will better prepare these people—not so much the English speaking—to go forward and understand the ways and the life of the Australian community. My children feel very strongly about this; they want to learn.

I know that many people have come to live in Australia to seek greater opportunity. It is the opportunity that we want to offer, but one of the responsibilities is to ensure that we, as Australian people and citizens, make the most of what our country has to offer new arrivals, to enable them to have a sense of true belonging and involvement in our community. This is what I believe the citizenship test will ultimately achieve. Yes, it will be daunting in the first stages but you can sit the test again if you do not pass. If you are under the age of 18 or over 60, or if you have a permanent physical or mental incapacity which would prevent you from understanding the nature of an application, you would not be required to sit this test. But it will encourage our prospective citizens to obtain the knowledge that they will require to support their successful integration into Australian society.

We have just had an exhibition in Wagga Wagga called From All Four Corners. I launched that exhibition some weeks ago. It was one of the most difficult exhibitions for me to launch. When I went through all of the components and exhibits of that exhibition it was heart-warming to see what many of these people, who I knew intensely closely, had achieved. I had not recognised the difficulties that they had to overcome. One of the families exhibited green hot-water bottles in a glass cabinet. We used to put hot-water bottles in our beds before the advent of electric blankets.

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