Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I am very happy to be speaking on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Testing) Bill 2007. I will start by mimicking some of the words of the ALP shadow minister for immigration, the member for Watson. He said that from time to time there are great pieces of legislation that change radically the way we think or deal with certain issues—that are essentially hugely important to society and make a whole world of change and are so important in this place. Unfortunately, this is not one of those bills. This bill actually does not do a great deal at all. You would have to read it twice, and still you would scratch your head and say, ‘What does it actually do?’ The devil, they say, is in the detail. Unfortunately, when you read the detail, there is no devil, because there is not any detail to start with. There is really no devil in it, either. This is not some unusual bill; this is not controversial. It has been made out to be, I think, by all sorts of people from all sorts of sides in a range of cases.

I do not find the bill offensive in any way. I think there are a couple of bits in it which we need to know more about—the devil in the detail—because the bill does not resolve issues that have been raised in terms of reasonableness, what the questions might be and exactly how they will be applied. There are a number of unknowns within the bill but it is certainly not a bill that will set the world on fire. This is not a bill that will radically change the way that Australia deals with our citizenship; it just formalises a process that is already there. It is a process that currently takes place every time somebody applies to become an Australian citizen and it has been around in this country for a very long time.

I just wanted to start by saying that. I have a range of views in this area, which I think are important. I think this issue is important but the bill does not go to the heart of making some sort of significant change in Australian culture, society, inclusiveness or anything like that. I suppose I should declare here that I actually was not born in Australia. I took up Australian citizenship voluntarily. It is my only citizenship, of course. My family did that because it was something we really wanted to do. We had this burning desire because we thought that if you are going to live in a country you should fully participate and fully contribute to that country. Australia is a great country for that. When I think about it, it is one of the things I get goose bumps about.

Just how great is this country when somebody who was not born here, such as me, can be a member of parliament! I am not the only one; there is a whole range of such people on both sides. It is one of the truly great things about this institution—along with the freedoms, democracy and all the things we hold dear. Australian citizenship is part of that formula. It is something that I treasure absolutely. I think that all people who take up citizenship have a similar experience and a similar view. For them it is something significantly important. It is a massive decision to take in their lives. Regardless of where they were born and who they are, they are saying to the whole world, ‘I am making a conscious decision as an adult that I have this new country, new allegiance, new family, new set of values and new culture.’ All of those things are inherent in taking up Australian citizenship.

The last thing that any of us would want to do, in good faith, would be to make it more complicated or more difficult for people. I do not believe this bill will do that, by the way. I do not think this bill makes it any more difficult. When we see a bit more of the detail we will be able to make a better judgement and a better assessment of the reasonableness of certain exemptions by the minister and how the questions will work and so forth. I am reasonably confident that if the government is doing this in good faith—and I will have a little bit to say about this as well—then this is not a great departure from where we have been.

Probably not everyone understands that prior to the introduction of Citizenship Act in 1948—I do not know whether you would have this as one of the questions because a lot of people would get it wrong—there was no Australian citizenship as such. You were really just a citizen of the British Empire. The only true Australians were our Indigenous people.

So, many things have changed. The way we view ourselves and the way that citizenship works today has changed completely. That is normal because that is the history of Australia over 200 years since settlement. There is a changing view. Just as values change, so do views and the ways our systems deal with certain situations. A lot of expectations have changed, and I think all of us would understand that as a result of being members of parliament we have had the great privilege of attending so many citizenship ceremonies.

When you see people taking on citizenship you see the emotion and you understand how big a decision it is for some of them. Some of them have been here a long time. For some of them it is just formalising something that they have had in the back of their minds. Maybe they just never got around to it, but they decided that the time had come and they really had to make that leap and become a fully participating Australian. To tell you the truth a lot of those people actually considered themselves to be Australian the whole time. I have often spoken to people from the UK who have been here for 50 or more years. They might get in a little bit of strife when they decide to travel back and do not have the correct documents. They realise they are not Australian citizens. Things like that happen but they are formalising their want to become Australian citizens.

It is easy for those who have been here for a really long time. There are those who come here from circumstances of genuine hardship. I hope there is always great agreement between all people about helping people through UNHCR programs and humanitarian programs by trying to give them the ability to come and live in safety and peace here in Australia. Then at some point we can encourage them to become Australian citizens as well.

When I first heard from the government of this test and these changes I had an impression in my mind—and I am sure a lot of the public did as well—that it was going to be some massive, radical change. It concerned me. I thought it was going to be a reform of gigantic proportions, which was revolutionary almost. I thought that this was somehow about keeping out undesirables and was linked to terrorism. There were all these connotations floating around. The government certainly did not do anything to dampen that. That may have suited their wider agenda, but when you look at it you will see that there is not a great deal here that would concern too many people.

So Labor is supporting this bill. I believe in a citizenship test. We have one now and no-one seems to argue about that. There has been a test around for very long time and no-one seems to have too many problems with that. The formalisation is a little bit different but it is not too strange. I think this legislation can perhaps put in place a more formal mechanism which will give people the opportunity to take up citizenship.

It is not so much about the test itself, because it can be sat a number of times, and it is not as if anyone would or should fail. It is perhaps simply making people jump through an extra hoop. Again, that is not too difficult. What the test should be about—what I hope it is about and what Labor supports—is education and providing information. It should make the process more inclusive and, from the Labor Party’s perspective, give people a greater feeling of earning their citizenship and having contributed more to obtaining it. It should not simply be a case of someone downloading a form from the internet, filling it out, sending off a cheque and receiving a piece of paper saying that they are an Australian citizen. It should be more involved than that, and it is.

The people of this country take their Australian citizenship very seriously. Taking out Australian citizenship, like taking out the citizenship of any other country, is a strange story. At some point we have all come from another country. Of course, that excludes Indigenous Australians. We meet people all over Australia who are Aussie, dinky-di and true blue and who talk with an Australian colloquial accent but with the hint of an accent from their home country. That is a beautiful thing. It is amazing to travel this country—whether it be to Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide or Perth—and hear all the different accents. That is particularly noticeable with older people who have adopted the new language and lingo but who still have a coarse accent from their home country. We realise that they really are Australian and have fully adopted the little sayings that we use. We also see that in the way their culture changes over time.

I have the great privilege in the electorate of Oxley to represent many people from a range of countries and backgrounds, in particular from Vietnam, Laos, China, Samoa, Tonga, the Pacific islands, Spain, Chile, Argentina and the list goes on. Oxley is a very multicultural area. Once upon a time people might not have thought that, but it is true. The local people have made a huge contribution. While they may not all be Australian citizens yet, I know it is a source of great pride and something they promote within their communities. It is a two-way message for them and their communities about never forgetting who they are and where they come from. They do not forget their language and they try to remember their culture, food and people and the reason they came here. That is part of their history and the journey undertaken, whether it was in the past 50 or 200 years.

As the members of the second generation of those immigrants from Vietnam and other areas come along they become much more Australian. The third and fourth generations change to the point at which their parents often tell me that they are really concerned about their kids because they cannot speak their language and have forgotten their culture; they are completely Australian. Those parents are also very proud of that, but they are worried because they do not want their children to forget that link to home. I think everyone would understand that. That is simply the way things are; you eventually become so Australian that the old heritage becomes a distant memory. Members might not hear a different accent or notice different mannerisms in members from another place, although given the way we use our hands some might hazard a guess as to our heritage.

The application of the test in this bill can and should be about inclusiveness and the principles of fairness. We make judgements and implement strategies to implement values. I love the values debate. We articulate our definition of values differently, but we often return to the same core ideas. I think we all believe in democracy, fairness and free speech. We all subscribe to common values and we often say that ours is a tolerant society. I again use the words used by many others: tolerance is a great thing, but inclusiveness is even better. We see a change in immigrant communities when we suddenly move from tolerating their presence to including them and making them feel part of the fabric and greatness of Australia. This country’s strength today is built on the foundations laid by people from many different backgrounds.

We should never fear multiculturalism. Some people say it has no place and that we should get rid of it. I tell them that they are wrong; we cannot get rid of something that is in-built. Multiculturalism is simply a word, but it is one that represents something all around us; it is Australian. We see it in this parliament; this is a multicultural parliament. The biographies of members of parliament demonstrate incredibly rich and diverse histories. All those different views and backgrounds are the strength of this place. Having been born elsewhere and having a different cultural background or heritage does not diminish in any way our devotion and dedication to or our love or the hard work we do for this country. In fact, that strengthens it.

We find littered through the records of the great people of this country the fact that some of them could barely speak English, if at all. However, they have still made huge contributions in a range of areas, be it the medical, science or business spheres. Those people have loved this country and have made huge contributions through culture, the arts or business, or simply by making Australia a greater place. We should particularly value that.

I have a couple of words of caution. The book that the 200 questions will be drawn from has not been released. Let us make it clear that this bill does two things. Firstly, it formalises a test whereby people will fill out a multiple-choice form of 20 questions. It was going to be 30. We are yet to see the book that the questions will be drawn from and we will make a judgement as to the reasonableness of those questions when we see them, obviously after the first test has been implemented. Secondly, the implementation of a citizenship test is not a radical departure from what Labor’s position has been for a very long time, so I do not think anyone should be overly spooked by it. The legislation enables the government and the minister to make some exemptions and to set some questions. The nature of the questions will be interesting, because we want to make sure that prospective Australians have a reasonable chance of passing them—that the test is not impossibly hard. The test is not some crazy game of Trivial Pursuit, and we would not want to demean our nationality in that way. We would also not want the questions to be of such difficulty that they would incur a huge failure rate in general society—questions that perhaps even members of parliament would commonly get wrong. We would not want to get too much into the animals that are on our coat of arms, because most people would probably get the answer wrong—it is not quite what you think it is; it is something else.

Other common errors are made in answer to certain questions. The Sydney Morning Herald and I think the Herald Sun put out an example test, which was purported to be ‘the’ test. However, one of the answers was wrong. You can see where I am going with this: we need to be careful about our approach. The shadow minister, the member for Watson, moved a second reading amendment that goes to a reasonable test of citizenship and notes the importance of teaching English. Although people may have been here for 15 years and may not speak English to the standard we would like, it is important that they learn. It will help them to contribute to society, thereby helping them to become better citizens. It will help them to get a job and it will assist them in a range of areas. I think that is very important. If the government is committed to proficiency in English language and literacy, then a heap of programs that cover adult migrant English need to be enhanced and funded to enable people to feel more a part of society. It is fine to teach English language skills, a bit of Australian history, culture and values, but we need to see improvements to the test. I do not think this test will set the world on fire at any point in time. This is a technical change that really does not change much at all. Changes to Australian citizenship and inclusiveness are about how the government funds programs and treats people. Those are the things that will make a difference. (Time expired)

See this speech in context