Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I firstly associate myself with the comments made by the member for Melbourne Ports, who made an outstanding contribution to this debate. Secondly, I emphasise the importance of the availability of English language courses. One of the first actions of the Howard government, at a time when I was a member of the state parliament of New South Wales, was to reduce English language courses. That was devastating for the people who relied on those English language courses to develop the skills that they needed to be functional members of our society, to be able to communicate effectively and to obtain employment. When we are talking about English language, we really need to realise that it was the Howard government that, as one of its first acts, reduced and abolished those English language classes.

The other point that I would like to make in my very short contribution to this debate is that I, like all members of this House, attend Australian citizenship ceremonies. I find them to be one of the most moving parts of my job. I would like to share with the House what happened at the second-last citizenship ceremony I attended, which was at Lake Macquarie City Council. Along with the other people that were present, I made my contribution to the ceremony. The mayor then stood up and started reading to the applicants. As he read, I looked at one of the applicants in the front row. She was nodding and became highly emotional. She had tears streaming down her face because for her to take out Australian citizenship was such an important event in her life. To her it meant that she had considered what it actually meant to become an Australian citizen. She had been living in Australia for 10 years, so it was not a decision she took lightly, but to her it was an all-encompassing decision—a highly emotional decision.

Whilst the government is looking at putting barriers in place when it comes to taking out citizenship, I argue that it should be encouraging people to take out citizenship. One applicant for citizenship in my area had lived in Australia for 87 years and finally decided that she would like to take out Australian citizenship. Australian citizenship is a privilege but, as a nation, we have grown and thrived because of people coming from overseas who are prepared to become Australian citizens.

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