Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I listened with great interest to the contribution made by the member for Kooyong to this debate on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Testing) Bill 2007. I know he has a very good understanding of immigration and the processes of citizenship in this country, one that is probably better than mine, and that his involvement in this area goes back a lot further than mine. I listened carefully to the reasoned contribution he made about his opposition to the bill, and I can certainly understand his reservations and his personal decision not to support it. I represent a very ethnically diverse electorate in Melbourne; in fact, it is one of the most ethnically diverse electorates in Australia. In my electorate of Gorton, more than half the households—57 per cent—speak a language other than English; on occasion, as well as English. I rise to support the bill and the proposed amendment, but I have to say that the member for Kooyong has highlighted concerns I have had about the original announcement made by the government in relation to this bill. The government’s comments in late 2006 about this matter were very concerning and, in my view, divisive. Indeed, I would suggest they were deliberately divisive and that this matter was being used as a political football by the government, which is consistent with the way it plays with a lot of important matters.

The test that was originally proposed by the government has been changed significantly. I had thought that might have been as a result of the conversations that the member for Kooyong had with the government. I am not sure if that is the case, but my thoughts were that a number of government members and maybe some members of other parties convinced the minister not to proceed with the original purpose of this bill. But I do note, as the shadow minister has also noted, that there have been significant changes to the original proposition.

Unlike the original proposal, the test is now more flexible. Applicants with literacy difficulties will now be talked through the test and, under this bill, further exemptions and variations can be made at any time. Clearly, that is not sufficient for the member for Kooyong, and I genuinely respect his reasons for that. I have some concerns about the way in which the change will still preclude some residents of this country becoming fully fledged citizens because of their potential incapacity to pass even a test they are being asked to do orally because of their own literacy difficulties. As I said, the original proposal has been watered down in this bill. However, we still do not know the questions that will be asked. It is interesting to be debating a bill and talking about a test when the test itself has not been determined. We are looking to agree upon a matter when we do not have all the detail, although I understand the test itself is quite simple.

Labor generally supports the principle of formalising the current citizenship test, but whether the proposal is worth supporting depends on its content—and that, as I said, remains a mystery. We are still waiting for the government to provide the details. It is also important to note that we already have a citizenship test and have had one, in one form or another, since 1948—for as long as Australian citizenship has existed. This bill will formalise a process that was largely opaque, but will still provide discretionary powers. Much latitude will still exist for applicants to overcome literacy obstacles where special arrangements can be made to accommodate them. The very old and those under 18 will be exempt. I am also happy to see that there will not be a separate English test but a test that will be formalised and integrated into the application process.

Many proponents of the bill point to a Newspoll that was taken in December last year, and subsequently published in the Australian, claiming that it showed a majority of Australians to be in favour of a citizenship test. The member for Kooyong quite rightly refuted the conclusion that some have made about that Newspoll. The Newspoll question noted that the proposed test ‘must be completed in English, making knowledge of English a requirement to become an Australian citizen’ and asked: ‘Are you in favour or against knowledge of English being a requirement to become an Australian citizen?’ There are two points I would like to make with respect to that poll. Firstly, the poll was on the public reaction to the proposal that citizens should learn English, not on the support for a citizenship test. Secondly, the knowledge of English is already a requirement under the current law for eligibility. In fact, the ability to understand English was first put into the citizenship test in 1948, as I said earlier, when the status of Australian citizenship was first established. The only effective difference between the test being proposed here and the existing test is that at the moment an applicant’s English is tested verbally by interview, whereas in this proposal the test is written, at least initially. However, following any difficulties, the applicant could proceed to a verbal interview. So where a person does not have the literacy skills required to understand the test, the bill provides for more flexibility than existed before. In that event, a test administrator can go through the text of the questions verbally. The bill also provides for different tests should that be required by the particular applicant.

We are pleased to see that the government has significantly back-pedalled from its original divisive rhetoric, which it was happy to see played out across the tabloids and talkback stations across the nation in late 2006. In fact the rhetoric on this issue has been at odds somewhat with the content of the legislation before us. Opposition to the government’s tone on the citizenship issue has not been restricted to the opposition. As the member for Kooyong has clearly underlined, there are grave concerns among government members about the motives of the bill and indeed the contents of the bill.

The government had claimed that rigorous testing will aid integration, yet their practice has been to strip community groups that actually aid integration of some of their funds, or at least make the terms of their funding much more restrictive. I remember very clearly the anxiety communicated to me by the staff of a migrant resource centre in my own electorate when it became clear that the government was recasting their funding models, making many of their more important functions more difficult or even impossible to maintain.

Much of the discussion in this debate has emphasised our common values, yet I wonder how well we actually live up to the values we claim to represent. Values advertise themselves through example, but do we actually live our own values? Many Australians might identify the ‘fair go’ as a quintessentially Australian value. But where was the fair go in the government’s approach to the prosecution of David Hicks? Where was the fair go with the introduction of industrial relations laws entitled Work Choices? Where is the principle of the fair go in those decisions? What are the values that define us as distinct from other nations? And that is another important question we should ask ourselves. Are these values genuine or do they represent a national conceit? Are we testing citizens on our values as we live them or simply testing people’s awareness of the values we aspire to but do not actually live by? I think that these matters should be considered by all members, indeed by society at large.

In the past the Prime Minister has mocked those who sought to define the national character. Many would say it was a project which was a by-product of a greater sense of nationhood, a resurgent nationalism, and indeed some attributed it to the Whitlam government in the 1970s. The Prime Minister said he wanted Australians to be ‘comfortable and relaxed’ about their origins and history in some of his earliest speeches as Prime Minister. Certainly it was on his mind at his election in 1996. If the concern is indeed integration, and the most important single hindrance to integration is lack of English, then why not expand the access to English classes and training?

I make particular reference to the amendment moved by the shadow minister in part 3. By moving this amendment, he is calling on the government to provide improvements to the Adult Migrant English Program and other settlement services to assist migrants to participate fully in the Australian community and to pass the citizenship test. So one wonders how genuine the government is in its rhetoric about being inclusive when it does not provide the wherewithal for many migrants to gain access to English classes and encourage those migrants to become more literate and conversant in English.

I have some major concerns with this bill. As we have witnessed already this morning, these concerns are shared by members of the government. The member for Kooyong did raise an important issue, I thought, when he drew upon examples in other countries and outlined what they do to process their citizenship. It could be said that we are in danger of following inappropriate European examples where large-scale immigration has proceeded illegally for many years and where immigrants are held back from full citizenship by rigorous controls. In these countries the adoption of a citizenship test has actually increased the access to citizenship.

In contrast, Australia has a long history of successful integration of people from all over the globe. Public acceptance of immigration is widespread, an acceptance which increases with greater day-to-day contact with new migrant groups. In fact one might say that multiculturalism itself is an Australian value. The adoption of a too-restrictive citizenship test would be a restriction which was not there before. The reintroduction of a harsh application process for citizenship would be a significant reversal of the trend which has seen successive governments try to open up the process rather than close it down, and I believe that was the point that the member for Kooyong made quite clearly in his contribution.

The history of citizenship conferral since it was created through the Australian Citizenship Act 1948—until now—is of a progressively more inclusive approach and the easing of requirements. We should be encouraging new migrants to fully participate in the life of the nation by adopting Australian nationality, not restricting it further. When we inquired about the content of the proposed test—to be made subsequent to this bill being enacted—the government had to admit that it had not yet designed the test. In fact it has not even drafted the book from which the questions will be based.

So we must question—as indeed the member for Kooyong did—the government’s sincerity when it makes an announcement and fosters widespread community debate about the notion of a test without actually having any idea what that test might contain. This is yet another example of the government asking the opposition parties, its own members and the community at large to support potentially divisive proposals without any notion of what those proposals might actually contain. No wonder the electorate is cynical about this government.

From the outset of this process, the government late last year made claims about the requirements of English for admission to Australian citizenship and then, in a quieter process, pulled back from the hard rhetoric which I say, and others have said, was divisive—and deliberately so—and ultimately proposed this bill. The bill causes me some consternation because some of the matters that we should have before us to properly decide the merits of the bill are not before us—in particular, the test. It is incumbent on the government to provide that test to the public and to the parliament so members can properly consider their decision to support or not support the bill. The member for Kooyong’s comments clearly came as a result of his frustration over the government’s handling of the legislation. I respect his position on that.

I have fallen on the other side of the decision, if you like, by supporting this bill. But I do so with reservations and with some questions unresolved. Those questions are unresolved largely because I do not have the information at hand to consider the merits of parts of the bill—in particular, the test itself. I support the amendments moved by the shadow minister. If the government accepts them, I think they will at least assist in more migrants having access to English classes. I support those provisions because they may assist in the greater likelihood of people wanting to become and indeed becoming Australian citizens, but I am certainly concerned about some of the unresolved matters, due to the failure of the minister and the government.

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