Petro Georgiou (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your election to this very important position in the parliament and I hope you keep on enjoying the job as much as you seem to be enjoying it to date.

Through the Governor-General’s address, the new government has indicated an ambitious agenda covering a wide range of policy areas. I wish to focus on one of the subjects covered in the address—that of social inclusion. This is defined in the address as ‘improving the opportunities for all Australians to participate fully in Australian economic and social life’. That is certainly an aim shared by both sides of the parliament and one that I strongly support. I do not take issue with any of the specific initiatives that the government says it will implement to promote social inclusion. They deal with a variety of important subjects, such as the gap between the mortality rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. My concern is that two important aspects were not mentioned: promoting the social inclusion of migrants through English language teaching, and multiculturalism. I will not speculate on the reasons for their omission, but I note that, in Labor’s detailed election policy document An Australian Social Inclusion Agenda, there was also no mention of the disadvantage experienced by migrants or of multiculturalism.

The necessity for programs to assist migrants and particularly refugees has been acknowledged by successive governments for a long time, though that acknowledgement has not always guaranteed the provision of adequate resources. In July last year, the then shadow minister for immigration, who has been elevated to a significant portfolio, announced that a Rudd Labor government would commit an additional $49.2 million to help migrants learn English. The Prime Minister and his senior ministers have all been adamant that the government will implement its pre-election commitments, so I trust that any omission of a reference in the Governor-General’s speech to the strengthening of English language programs and settlement programs was not significant. Hopefully, the prioritisation of social inclusion will protect this program from falling victim to the government’s razor gang, because the necessity for English language teaching and settlement programs grew enormously last year when the government of the day introduced a new citizenship test. Proponents of the new test have argued that it is intended to, and will, promote integration. But, as I and many others contended when the test was proposed, in all probability it will prove to be a barrier of exclusion rather than a vehicle of inclusion. In the debate last August I said:

The fact that Australian citizenship laws have been made more inclusive in the past has provided a basis of trust, confidence and achievement. The fact that we accepted people with modest English language skills as citizens has broken down barriers, not maintained them. The establishment of this test will, I believe, diminish Australia. I do not believe that this will be apparent immediately, but I believe that it will happen, as the test excludes people who are committed to Australia and who could pass the present test. Their opportunities will be restricted, their participation will be impeded and the fairness and vitality of our society will be eroded.

That prognosis was bleak, but it may already be eventuating. Since the first test was introduced on 1 October, the number of applicants for citizenship has fallen dramatically. In the nine months immediately preceding the introduction of the test, there were never fewer than 11,000 applications a month. Since then, applications have plunged to just over 2,000 in October, 3,500 in November, 3,200 in December and 4,200 in January. In the decade preceding the test, the average number of applications for citizenship was 99,450. On current figures, the total number of applications in the 12 months following the introduction of the test is projected to be just 39,336. Is there a cause-and-effect relationship or are other factors responsible? You cannot attribute the decline to the holiday period. There was no seasonal variation in the previous 10 years and the rates are far lower in the comparable months in that period. You cannot attribute it to the fact that there are not enough people who, due to residency requirements, could apply, because there are approximately one million people in this country who are eligible to apply.

Whatever the explanation of that downturn in citizenship applications, it is troubling. Citizenship is an important element of social inclusion. It carries a range of privileges and responsibilities, which include the right to live here permanently, as distinct from the permission to remain which is granted to permanent residents; the right to apply for an Australian passport and seek consular assistance from Australian diplomatic representatives overseas; the right to register as Australian citizens children born overseas; the right to seek the full range of employment in the Defence Force and the Public Service; and, most importantly, the right to vote.

But it is not just a question of the sheer fall in the numbers of applicants; it also a question of what has happened to the reduced number of people who sat the new test. Unsurprisingly, the test is proving to be a harsher barrier for refugees than for other migrants. Around 30 per cent of those from Sudan, 25 per cent of those from Afghanistan and 16 per cent of those from Iraq were unable to pass. These results compare with a failure rate of around three percentage points for migrants in the skilled stream and 10 per cent of those who come in on family reunion. The fact is that it is the most vulnerable that this test hits the hardest. The personal cost of not getting Australian citizenship may be far greater for refugees than for other migrants. Some are stateless, so a lack of citizenship is an ongoing source of deep emotional insecurity. Many refugees, both stateless and otherwise, do not have passports, so they are unable to travel to reunite with family members scattered around the world by their flight to survive.

When the bill was introduced and the new test was being considered, few members of the House shared my view that it was so ill-conceived and unfair that it should not proceed. At the same time, many did have reservations and proposed that some protections be put in place. The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs received evidence of strong concerns about the impact of the new test from a number of informed individuals and groups and, accordingly, it recommended that the operation of the citizenship testing regime be reviewed three years after the bill’s commencement. The committee also recommended that the proposed citizenship questions be tabled in the parliament, and I quote from the report:

Given the apparent level of community disquiet about the questions that might be included in the test, and that, as a general rule, delegated legislation should be transparent and disallowable, the committee suggests that the test questions be tabled in the Parliament to provide additional reassurance to those concerned. It would also help to ensure transparency and accountability of the proposed regime.

This was supported by both the Liberal and the Labor senators on the committee and more generally. The then opposition leader, Mr Rudd, commented that Labor had questions about the test, stating:

Show us the tests. Let’s see what sort of scrutiny they need to be subjected to.

The then shadow minister, during the debate on the citizenship bill, said:

I think that, as a matter of transparency, the government making the questions available is completely in the interests of citizenship being a process of unifying Australians. It is a logical thing to do, and it is completely in the interests of the government to do so.

The arguments for transparency that the opposition put in June 2007 are no less compelling eight months later now that it is in government and has the power to implement its positions. Indeed, if one listened to the debates in this parliament over the last few days, one would say that it is even more compelling because the word ‘transparency’ or the virtue of transparency has become almost cant.

The test questions have not been published to date and I have made several inquiries of the government to try to find out when or if they will be published. Thus far the requests for further clarification have been in vain. I suspect that this indicates that demands for transparency made by the Labor opposition are different from the capacity to meet those demands now that Labor is actually in a position to do so. I note as well that, last year, Labor tried to ameliorate difficulties that the test would cause migrants of a non-English-speaking background by amending the legislation to require that the Adult Migrant English Program and other settlement services be improved to assist migrants to participate fully in the Australian community and to pass the citizenship test. That amendment failed, but Labor now has the opportunity and the power to make good on its commitment to increase funding for these programs.

The government has stated that in April it will commission a review of the operation of the test, after it has been operating for six months. Given the government’s support for the test, I do not anticipate that this will be the fundamental review that we really need to have. I do not anticipate that it will inquire into whether the test really does provide a strong incentive for people to learn English. I do not anticipate that it will examine whether the knowledge people have to have to pass the test will make them more grateful and better citizens than those who acquired citizenship in previous decades. I do not anticipate that it will consider whether the test is penalising, excluding and alienating people who would make worthy members of our community. I do not anticipate that the review will do all this, but I believe that it should at least identify and ameliorate some of the harshest and most arbitrary features of what I believe is an expensive and counterproductive folly. Whether the review can do so depends on a number of elements that have not been announced as yet or, perhaps, have not even been decided. Most important is the independence and the calibre of the people who are appointed to undertake the review. They will need to have credibility, firmly grounded in their demonstrable integrity, knowledge of the area and sound public policy skills.

A second key element is the terms of reference of the review. The terms of reference must allow the reviewer to rigorously assess whether or not the test is achieving its objectives and whether or not there are any adverse consequences. I hope the Prime Minister’s recent intervention to ensure that aspiring applicants have to be aware of a cricketing champion of 50 years ago does not mean that the review will be limited to tweaking some of the questions.

When the initial post-test data was published, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship said:

If people are not succeeding, we need to find out why, and how we can help to support them better.

I agree, but to do that the review will have to be resourced to conduct such research as may be required to assemble evidence about the operation and implication of the test. The review must hear, in a rather more effective way than the last consultations did, the voices of those who are eager to become citizens but who find the test too daunting. It must take advice from education and health professionals about how difficult it is to study when you are a survivor of traumatic experiences before coming to Australia or when you are a middle-aged adult who does not speak English well and who is working long hours in an abattoir, cleaning offices or driving a taxi.

The review should also examine how other countries go about testing applicants for citizenship, and the lessons from these tests. This was certainly not done properly prior to the introduction of the test. For example, the UK was consistently put forward as a good model for Australia. We were not told that the UK does not test people about British history because it was considered unfair to ask immigrants questions that many British people would have difficulty answering. The report of the review of the Australian test should be published to allow discussions before the minister makes any changes. This would also be in keeping with the government’s promise of greater transparency in decision making.

I now turn to the other social inclusion issue which I mentioned at the outset: multiculturalism. A year ago this term was officially banished from the Australian government’s political lexicon. It was banished despite the fact that multiculturalism was one of the policy responses which was instrumental in Australia’s astonishing capacity to meet the challenge of an ethnically and culturally diverse society. It was a multiculturalism which explicitly insisted on a commitment to core values as the basis for a shared identity, as well as respect for diversity. The opposition at the time was critical of the government’s abandonment of multiculturalism, and the new government has resurrected the word in the title of the office of Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services. I would be interested in whether this is more than a rhetorical gesture or an act of sheer symbolism. Two things will tell us. One is when the government publishes its policy on cultural diversity. The website of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has a section for the government’s policy and for a while it has read:

This section of the website is currently being updated.

I and, I believe, many other people in the community eagerly await the news and trust it will come soon.

The other indicator of the government’s intention will be the outcome of what the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services has described as:

... an examination of how best to foster and promote the benefits of cultural diversity in the Australian community.

This examination was announced in a media release of 8 February which was boldly headed ‘A new lease of life for multicultural Australia’—lovely. Regrettably, the media release does not indicate who is undertaking the examination, what the terms of reference will be or what process will be followed. Contrasted with the declarations about the importance of transparency, one can only describe this as being distinctly opaque. If the government wishes to provide more information, I am sure that it will find in the community many people who would be willing to help.

I commend the government for identifying social inclusion as a priority of its work. I urge it to not ignore the formidable barriers to full and effective participation in Australia’s economic and social life encountered by both citizens and permanent residents who have thus far been overlooked in the government’s social inclusion agenda. To recapitulate my remarks, I call on the government to do three things. Firstly, the government should strengthen English language teaching and settlement programs. This is a commitment that must be honoured in full. Secondly, the government should ameliorate the adverse impacts of the new citizenship test. Thirdly, the government should reinvigorate the policy of multiculturalism, which has proved to be an astonishingly intelligent, successful and rewarding response to the fact of our ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity.

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