Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like in Zoolander. I love a good Zoolander quote. They impact everybody. I've had approaches from people from countries all around the world who have come here to settle in Australia, who have been here for four years and who are now unable to attain citizenship or who are confused by these amendments to citizenship and who are already experiencing long delays in their citizenship applications. To think that they will now have to wait maybe up to 20 years before they can pledge allegiance to a country that they are already contributing to! I know that my colleagues have made the point that this creates a second class of people here who can never attain citizenship. Don't we want to integrate those people? Don't we want those people to be able to take that pledge for Australia? Don't we want them to be able to say that they pledge allegiance to Australia and its people, share in our democratic beliefs and respect our rights and liberties? Don't we want them to do that? I think we do. I think we all do. I think everybody in this chamber does. I don't think there is anybody in this room here today or any other day—there are not many here today—who would disagree with that. The residency requirements don't just impact a small number of people; they impact a whole range of people coming from a whole range of countries, including those who are coming here from English-speaking countries.

The third point that I want to make is in relation to the Australian values statement. Of course, all Australians should sign up to our laws and our values. Labor is committed to that. But here's the thing: the law already allows the government to put forward any questions in the citizenship test that they like. So what exactly is this amendment for? Why is it included in this bill? To me, it seems that all it is is an attempt to hoodwink Australians into thinking that the government are doing something effective.

I want to stress two words here, I want to stress the words 'reasonable' and 'effective', because they're not just words; they really should describe any measures that we take in relation to whole a range of things. All measures that we take here in this House should be measures that are reasonable and effective, because you can't have one without the other.

This brings me to the point of national security and the fact that conflating this legislation with national security is neither reasonable nor effective, because this bill does not come on the advice of the national security agencies. Time and time again, we see this government trying to pass legislation that appeases their far right and win votes by playing the politics of race, by inserting measures that are neither reasonable nor effective. They don't just impact on the minority that One Nation and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection want to target; they affect everyone in Australia.

Let me demonstrate why this is neither reasonable nor effective in relation to national security. There is not one shred of empirical evidence that suggests that proficiency in English language is some kind of resilience factor to violent extremism and terrorism. I challenge the minister for immigration and those on the other side to produce for me the empirical evidence that says that, if you know English well, you are less likely to become a terrorist. I challenge them to produce the empirical evidence that says that those with better English are less likely to become radicalised. I will tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, they won't find that evidence, because it does not exist. It does not exist; there is not a shred of evidence. In fact, most of those who have gone overseas to fight for Daesh speak, read and write English very well. It's the very reason why ISIS produces propaganda in English—very well-written English, I might add, level 6 English and above, as a matter of fact.

So we don't support this bill. We don't support this bill, and it is not because we're soft on border security, it is not because we want to open the floodgates and it is not because we don't want people to learn English. It is not because of any of those reasons that those on the other side keep telling us and the Australian people. Of course we support strong national security; we have always been bipartisan on that. Of course we want people who come to this country to be able to fully participate as citizens. Of course we understand that citizenship is not a right, it's a privilege. And of course we want to make sure that those who come here and who take up citizenship do pledge their allegiance to our values and believe in our democratic system. We want to ensure that they are able to do that, we want to ensure that they are able to get jobs and we want to ensure that they are able to fully function as Australian citizens—not just get a certificate that says they're an Australian citizen. We want to help them do that.

But this legislation does not do that. This legislation does not make that better. This legislation is neither reasonable nor effective. If we want to govern here in this House for all Australians we must continue to ensure that everything we introduce is reasonable and effective. So we don't support this bill. We don't support this bill, because we see through it. We stand for being smart. We stand for being smart about immigration and effective on national security. And it is because we listen. We listen to the people of Australia when they tell us that they do not want this legislation. (Time expired)

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