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

In 2007, despite widespread and well-informed criticism, the then government imposed a tough new test on people aspiring to become Australian citizens. Contrary to the propaganda, there had always been a citizenship test in Australia. Until 2007, the test involved a face-to-face assessment of applicants’ ability to speak basic English and their knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. By contrast, the new test required literacy, computer skills and knowledge of a wide range of facts about Australian history, geography and other subjects. The demands of this new test exceeded the capacity of many native-born citizens, and I opposed that test within and outside the parliament.

The test was overwhelmingly regressive. It turned its back on Australia’s tradition of inclusive citizenship. It discriminated not just against people of non-English-speaking background but against all people who have difficulty with literacy, and that is hundreds of thousands of people. It sent a corrosive message to many people—people committed to Australia—that they were not deserving of citizenship if they could not pass the test. Undoubtedly, it prevented many meritorious aspiring citizens from becoming full members of the Australian community. All these backward steps were taken despite any evidence that the new test was needed.

The then Labor opposition waved the legislation through. They made no amendments. They did not vote. They did, however, make the commitment that, if elected, they would establish a review of the citizenship test. Having won power, Labor did so. They established the Australian Citizenship Test Review Committee. This was a high-calibre group. It was chaired by Richard Woolcott, a very distinguished Australian. Other committee members were Rechelle Hawkes, Paula Masselos, Julianna Nkrumah, Warren Pearson, Vice Admiral Chris Ritchie and Professor Kim Rubenstein.

I do not want to be misunderstood. I thought that this was the best group that could be brought together for this task. It was a pity that from the outset the government tied the committee’s hands by declaring the new computerised citizenship test would remain. This was a significant handicap but, despite it, the Woolcott review’s work was quite exemplary. The committee undertook broad and genuine consultation. Its analysis was acute. Its recommendations were substantial and they were enlightened. The report transcended populist politics. It served the best interests of Australia and it reflected the best impulses of the Australian people. Dick Woolcott and his committee found that:

The present test is flawed, intimidating to some and discriminatory. It needs substantial reform.

The committee sought and found creative ways to return Australian citizenship to its tradition of inclusiveness. The review is a great tribute to its authors. The Citizenship Test Review Committee made 34 recommendations, and I commend the government for adopting a range of them, including focusing the test on the pledge of allegiance; having the resource book rewritten, dividing it into testable and non-testable sections; ending the need to pass mandatory questions; and, at the last moment, broadening the exemption for physical and mental disability.

According to the DIAC website, the government fully supported 23 of the recommendations and gave in-principle support to a further four. Leaving aside what ‘in principle’ means, on my count this number is incorrect. The government rejected or did not fully support 11 recommendations. My concern is not about errors of arithmetic or about the government’s spin—although there is a surfeit of this in the government’s response. My fundamental concern is that the government rejected the report’s most significant recommendations. It rejected recommendations that would have greatly enhanced the return to inclusive citizenship, and I think that is a matter of great regret.

As a cornerstone of its recommendations, the Woolcott review addressed the strong and widespread concern that a computer based test, even if it were substantially reformed, would exclude many people from getting citizenship—people who had been admitted to citizenship under arrangements that had been in place for over half a century. Throughout our post-war history, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated they made good and often exceptional citizens, yet these people could not have passed the test.

The Woolcott review addressed the exclusionist bias of the new test. It did so through its recommendation that we institute ‘earned citizenship’. Earned citizenship recognises the commitment and the valuable contribution made to Australia by migrants over a long period of time. It reflects the belief that a compassionate society should provide a safety net for those who, despite their attempts, are simply unable to pass the test. A number of criteria for earned citizenship were set out in the Woolcott report. These were to be assessed by a citizenship referee appointed by the minister. This recommendation was rejected by the government. Earned citizenship was thrown out without argument and without justification, other than that contained in a single sentence, and I quote:

The Government believes this would introduce classes of citizenship.

This peremptory dismissal of well-considered suggestions of a very able group of people—a group selected by the government itself—is arrogant and its rationale is manifestly false.

The truth is that our citizenship law has provided a number of avenues to citizenship. These have been supported by successive governments. No-one has ever suggested that these avenues involved the introduction of classes of citizens—first, second or third. The basic and irreducible fact is that there is only one class of citizenship: Australian citizenship. The fact is that, in addition to the various bases on which people may be eligible for citizenship by descent, section 21 of the Citizenship Act specifies a number of different grounds of eligibility for citizenship by conferral without the test having to be passed. These include a provision for people with a permanent physical or mental incapacity; people who are over 60 or have a hearing, speech or sight impairment; people born to former Australian citizens; people born in Papua; and stateless people. I say again: there may be exemptions but there has only been one class of Australian citizenship.

The government arrogantly dismissed the Woolcott review’s proposal for a new earned citizenship by claiming that it would introduce classes of citizenship. The government’s justification may have been more than flimsy, but now it is a travesty. The government has shown this by its amendments introducing special citizenship provisions for athletes and offshore workers. The minister says that he listened to the request of the Australian Olympic Committee and individual sportspeople to assist them with their special circumstances. Ministers are always to be applauded for listening. Listening is good. What is not good, what is not to be applauded, is the sharpness of the minister’s hearing when listening to the concerns about elite athletes contrasted with his profound deafness to the Woolcott review’s disinterested and compassionate recommendations. The minister should be condemned for being deaf to the Woolcott review’s recommendation that people should be eligible for citizenship because they have made a contribution to Australia and have been independently assessed as being committed to Australia.

But it is not just a matter of one rejection; there are multiple rejections. The question is: why has the minister turned a deaf ear to the other very sensible proposals in the Woolcott review? The Woolcott review, in addition to earned citizenship, proposed a distinctive new pathway to citizenship by separating the assessment of basic English from the adequate knowledge of Australia and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship. Basic knowledge of English would be assessed by interview with a citizenship referee and adequate knowledge of Australia and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship would be assessed through the completion of a citizen education program in languages other than English. This pathway would be appropriate for residents with low or no literacy but a basic grasp of English orally. Applicants for this pathway might also be literate in other languages but have no experience of formal tests or have limited or no experience with computers. The Woolcott review concluded:

The benefit of this pathway is that difficult and often unfamiliar concepts that people need to understand are explained in their preferred language.

                  …              …              …

This positive educational approach will assist and empower prospective citizens to contribute to, and participate in, the community and in Australian society.

The government dismissed this out of hand, stating only that ‘the government is committed to having a test in English’.

Why did the government not listen to the Woolcott review regarding the pass mark? Having examined the evidence, the Woolcott review recommended that the pass mark be retained at 60 per cent. The government completely dismissed this and it actually increased the pass mark to 75 per cent. The government’s justification for this is to ‘maintain the rigour of the test’. The government rejected the proposal from the Woolcott review that, until implementation of the changes were complete, the test questions should be published and that two of the mandatory questions had to be answered correctly. The government rejected this. The Woolcott review recommended that the new test questions should be made publicly available. This was something that Labor had asked for when it was in opposition. In his second reading speech in the debate on the Citizenship Testing Bill 2007, the then Labor spokesman on immigration, Tony Burke, said:

I think that, 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 …

That was also the view of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs enquiring into the citizenship testing bill, which recommended that ‘the proposed citizenship questions be tabled in the parliament’.

All these recommendations were curtly dismissed by the government with the retort that:

Maintaining the confidentiality of the test questions will ensure the integrity and rigour of the test is not diminished.

This was despite the findings of the Woolcott review that publishing the test questions would:

… reduce the fear and apprehension felt by many candidates and will assist in promoting learning.

The recommendations relating to interim measures were dismissed without a thought, with merely a sentence:

The Government is committed to maintaining the current test in its present form until the new test is in place.

Arrogant, unjustified dismissals of argument have been a hallmark of the immigration debate in the past. The government claims to have been changing the immigration culture, but this rejection of the review’s recommendations demonstrates that the cultural change process is far from complete.

Perhaps because of the scarcity of recommendations from Woolcott that were adopted, the government introduced other changes into the bill that were not recommended by Woolcott. The first of these related to elite athletes and offshore workers. The second related to the exemption that children under 18 could be made citizens despite the fact that they had not been permanent residents of Australia. There are a number of reasons for objecting to these changes and all of those reasons are contained in the Senate report. I think it is good to restrict ministerial discretion but I do not think it is good to create across-the-board hardships by doing so.

This Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009 is about citizenship but in the course of the debate, both here and in the Senate, it has been linked with asylum seekers and border protection. My views on this matter are not a secret but let me repeat: the amelioration of harsh policies towards asylum seekers—policies which, let me emphasise to the House, began under the Howard government—is long overdue and, despite further steps taken by this government, is not complete. There is absolutely no evidence that harshness deters desperate people from seeking asylum. There never has been. Whether it be mandatory detention, the incarceration of women and children behind razor wires or the excision of territories, none of these measures have deterred desperate people from seeking to come to Australia. There is some overwhelming and compelling evidence that harsh policies hurt vulnerable people who are entitled to our protection. That is what the overwhelming evidence about our detention policy shows. We should not contemplate returning to it.

I believe that the merits of this bill must be judged on the basis of its response to the Woolcott review’s recommendations on the subject of citizenship, which is a matter of fundamental national importance. On this basis, I regret to say that it is a profoundly deficient and disappointing effort. The bill should have been, and could have been, the legislative centrepiece of a comprehensive package of measures recommended by the Woolcott review. This would have established a more coherent, sensible and equitable framework for allowing eminently worthy residents to become full members of our community. In the absence of a full and candid explanation from the government, one can only speculate on the reasons for its failure to seize this opportunity, an opportunity which, I think, will not come again. There are probably a variety of reasons for this. Some of its members may well be hostile to the reforms. Others may be fainthearted and fearing a populist backlash. Whatever the reasons, the bill asks this legislature to endorse and legitimise a regime which will continue to unfairly exclude worthy people from Australian citizenship. It will cast out people who undoubtedly have both the qualities and the commitment that should entitle them to be granted this status. This will diminish the individuals affected and, I believe, it will diminish our nation. I cannot endorse the bill.

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