Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the explanatory memorandum to the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009 and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill amends the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 to implement the recommendations of the Australian Citizenship Test Review Committee that were agreed to by the government and to strengthen the eligibility requirements for citizenship by conferral for applicants under 18 years of age.

The bill also amends the act to provide for a reduced period of residence for certain persons in special circumstances to allow such persons to be eligible to become an Australian citizen.

In particular, schedule 1 to the bill:

• provides that certain applicants may be eligible for citizenship by conferral without a requirement to sit a test if the person has a permanent or enduring physical or mental incapacity which means that they are not capable of understanding the nature of the application; demonstrating a basic knowledge of English; or demonstrating an adequate knowledge of Australia and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship;
• provides that the citizenship test must be successfully completed within a period specified by the minister in a written determination; and
• provides that to be eligible for citizenship by conferral, applicants who are under 18 years of age must be permanent residents at both the time of application and the time of decision.

Further, schedule 2 to the bill provides for a special residence requirement for persons seeking to engage in specified activities that are of benefit to Australia and for certain persons engaged in particular kinds of work requiring frequent travel outside Australia.

In April 2008 the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship appointed an independent committee to review the operation and effectiveness of the citizenship test.

Six months after the test was introduced it was timely to assess the effectiveness of the citizenship test. During this time there were also a number of concerns raised with the minister, predominantly fears that the test had created an unintended barrier for the more vulnerable migrants in our community to be eligible to become Australian citizens.

The Citizenship Test Review Committee was commissioned to examine the operation of the citizenship test since its introduction on 1 October 2007 and identify whether there were ways to improve the administration of the test and its effectiveness as the pathway for residents to become Australian citizens. The review committee undertook extensive community consultations before compiling their report and recommendations.

In its report, Moving forward: improving pathways to citizenship, the review committee made 34 recommendations to the government. The recommendations of the review committee focused on improvements to the content and administration of the test, on the citizenship application process and on ensuring that vulnerable and disadvantaged people were not excluded from becoming citizens because of the test.

The government wants a citizenship test that is part of a meaningful pathway to citizenship for all those aspiring to become Australians. It should fill our new citizens with confidence about their role in this society and about how they can contribute to making this nation vibrant and strong.

The government reforms to the citizenship test aim to encourage prospective citizens to learn and understand the rights and responsibilities we all share as Australians.

On 22 November 2008, the government announced its response to the review committee’s report, which has received widespread community support. This bill implements those recommendations agreed to by the government that require changes to the act.

The central finding of the review, which the government has endorsed, is that the pledge of commitment should be the centrepiece of citizenship testing.

By focusing on the pledge of commitment the government has placed democratic beliefs, responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship, and the requirement to uphold and obey the laws of Australia at the heart of the citizenship test.

The review committee recommended that the citizenship resource book and test questions be revised to reflect the new focus on the pledge of commitment.

The government has engaged educational and civic experts to revise the resource book and test questions. The resource book has been developed in two separate sections: of testable and non-testable information. The testable information will be based on Australia’s democratic beliefs and values, the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship, and Australia’s system of government—the values outlined in the pledge of commitment.

In revising the resource book the government accepted the review committee’s finding that the level of English used in the resource book was closer to ‘native speaker’ rather than the legislative requirement of ‘basic English’. The revised resource book has been written in ‘basic English’ to make it more easily understood, particularly for those people from a non-English-speaking background.

The review committee expressed concern that there are no effective alternative pathways to sitting a computer based test which was, in effect, marginalising some people from becoming Australian citizens.

The government is committed to ensuring people who have a commitment to Australia, and who have a strong desire to become Australian citizens, have the opportunity to do so. To address this issue the government will develop a citizenship course which will provide an alternative pathway to citizenship for a small group of disadvantaged people whose literacy skills will never be sufficient to sit and pass a formal computer test, even though they understand English.

The government is committed to ensuring that new migrants have the best possible chance of understanding their responsibilities, rights and privileges as an Australian citizen. The citizenship course will be based on the material in the resource book. Participants will still be assessed on the legislative requirements of possessing an adequate knowledge of Australia and of the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship, as well as on possessing a basic knowledge of the English language.

The citizenship course will ensure that the citizenship test caters for the needs of a broader range of people, particularly those who are disadvantaged and vulnerable.

In conjunction with these improvements, the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009 seeks to implement the committee recommendations that were agreed to by the government and that require legislative change.

First, the bill proposes to amend the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 to allow for a small group of people who have a permanent or enduring physical or mental incapacity to be eligible for citizenship without having to first sit a citizenship test. These people will not have to sit a test if, at the time they make an application, they have a physical or mental incapacity which means that they are not capable of understanding the nature of the application; or demonstrating a basic knowledge of English; or demonstrating an adequate knowledge of Australia and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship.

This proposed amendment will ensure that the most vulnerable and disadvantaged of citizenship applicants will have a legitimate pathway to citizenship.

While the number of people affected by this amendment will be small, without it the government would be excluding a section of the Australian community from Australian citizenship.

In the past, these clients have often failed the citizenship test multiple times but had no other means of meeting the legal requirements for conferral of citizenship. Concerns have also been expressed that some of these vulnerable people are fearful of doing the test and therefore are choosing not to become Australian citizens as a result.

Secondly, the bill proposes to amend the act to streamline the citizenship application process. This is in response to the review committee’s observation that the current process of multiple steps was inefficient for clients and the department. The proposed changes will streamline the application and test process so that most applicants will only need to come to the department once. This will make the process more responsive and provide timely outcomes for clients as well as making better use of departmental resources.

Currently a person must sit and pass the citizenship test before making an application. As a result, many clients sit the test months before they will meet the residence requirements for citizenship, which results in multiple contact with the department.

The proposed amendments will allow most clients to make an appointment to lodge an application and subsequently have their application approved on the same day they successfully complete the test if all the legal requirements for citizenship are met.

The proposed amendments will also allow a time to be specified in a written determination made by the minister within which a person may commence a test and successfully complete a test after making an application. This is to make sure that an application can be refused if a person does not successfully complete a citizenship test within a reasonable period of time.

It is also proposed that the act be amended to require applicants for citizenship by conferral who are under the age of 18 to be permanent residents at the time of application and time of decision. The current act allows any person under the age of 18 to be eligible for Australian citizenship by conferral. This is a provision that was carried over from the Australian Citizenship Act 1948, the old act; however, the provision is being exploited and is undermining both the citizenship and migration programs.

Proposed amendments in this bill will require that applicants under the age of 18 must be permanent residents to be eligible for citizenship by conferral. This is consistent with current policy. This amendment will prevent children who are in Australia unlawfully, or who, along with their families, have exhausted all migration options, from applying for citizenship in an attempt to prevent their removal from Australia.

The amendments will ensure the integrity and consistency of the citizenship and migration programs.

These amendments bring about key changes that complement reforms to the citizenship test that are already underway. The bill will lead to a more streamlined citizenship process and one that will deliver fair and reasonable outcomes to clients of the department.

Schedule 2 to the bill seeks to amend the act to provide for a special residence requirement for persons seeking to engage in specified activities that are of benefit to Australia and certain persons engaged in particular kinds of work requiring regular travel outside Australia.

In particular the amendments contained in the bill will provide:

• a special residence requirement for certain people who need to be an Australian citizen in order to engage in a specified activity that would be of benefit to Australia, and the applicant needs to be an Australian citizen in order to engage in that activity and there is insufficient time for the person to satisfy the current residence requirement in section 22 of the act; and
• a special residence requirement for certain persons engaged in particular kinds of work requiring regular travel outside Australia who are unable to satisfy the current residence requirement in section 22 of the act because of the kind of work they are engaged in.

A discretion was available under the old act, which allowed the minister to grant Australian citizenship to a person who: was a permanent resident; was not present in Australia; and was engaged in activities outside Australia that the minister considered were beneficial to the interests of Australia.

This discretion was repealed when the act was introduced in 2007 because it was being used in unintended ways and became subject to substantial fraud and misrepresentation. There was little to limit the use of the discretion and its application relied on a subjective test.

However, at the same time the previous government changed the residence requirement for citizenship from two years permanent residence in Australia to four years lawful residence in Australia (either as a temporary or permanent resident), including at least 12 months as a permanent resident.

As a result of not including this discretion in the 2007 act and increasing the residence requirement a small group of people with special circumstances have been significantly disadvantaged, including elite sportspeople, international airline pilots, offshore oil rig workers and people requiring high-level security clearances. The act no longer enables the minister any discretion in relation to the current residence requirement to allow people in these special circumstances to be eligible for Australian citizenship.

The new special residence requirements in the bill will allow a pathway for the above groups to be eligible to become Australian citizens. In all cases the applicant will need to meet all of the other legal requirements for conferral of citizenship including being of good character and passing a citizenship test.

New section 22A introduces a special residence requirement for persons seeking to engage in specified activities that are of benefit to Australia.

This special residence requirement will allow applicants to be physically present in Australia for a shorter period of time compared with the general residence requirement. This is intended to provide greater flexibility for applicants who are seeking to engage in specified activities that would be of benefit to Australia, such as representing Australia at the Olympic Games where citizenship is a requirement to represent one’s country. Activities that could also be specified include those that may require an appropriate national security classification.

New section 22B introduces a special residence requirement for persons engaged in particular kinds of work involving frequent travel outside Australia, and who are unable to meet the general residence requirement because of the kind of work they are engaged in.

The amendments also insert new section 22C, which provides for the minister to make a legislative instrument specifying activities which require a person to be an Australian citizen which are of benefit to Australia.

The types of activities specified under this legislative instrument will, for example, include representing Australia in a particular sporting activity at the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games for which citizenship is a requirement to represent one’s country. Activities that could also be specified include those that may require an appropriate national security classification.

The legislative instrument will also specify the organisations who may give the minister a notice that a person has a reasonable prospect of being engaged in a specified activity—for example, the Australian Olympic Committee, the Australian Paralympic Committee or a government agency involved in matters of national security.

The kinds of work to be specified under this legislative instrument will, for example, include those which require a person to frequently travel outside Australia because of that work, such as international airline pilots, crew members of a ship and offshore oil rig workers.

The proposed special residence requirements provide clearly defined criteria for eligibility in law, which has been agreed to by parliament and, unlike the discretion under the old act, leaves no room for ambiguity as to who will be eligible for consideration under these provisions.

At this point I would like to briefly comment on the amendments which were moved by the opposition in Senate.

The opposition proposed that the minister should have a personal power, which he could not delegate, to grant citizenship to a person if he is satisfied that granting citizenship to the person would be in the Australian public interest because of the exceptional circumstances of the case, as long as the applicant was not present in Australia as an unlawful noncitizen at any time during the period of two years immediately before the day the applicant made the application and the person has sat and successfully completed a citizenship test.

It is clear that the shadow minister does not understand the government’s amendments or how the act works. The government amendments in the Senate did not represent a free pass to citizenship but rather a special residency requirement for a small group of people who do not have a pathway to citizenship.

The government amendments will still require applicants to meet all of the eligibility requirements in section 21 of the act, such as having a permanent visa, being of good character and having an ongoing commitment to Australia.

The opposition’s proposed amendments would have introduced so broad a discretion that it would have contained no permanent resident requirement, no time to be spent in Australia, no character requirements and no requirement to reside in or maintain a close and continuing association with Australia. These are all standard requirements for the conferral of citizenship, which the opposition would have thrown out the window. Australian citizenship is too valuable and important to be the subject of the personal opinion of the minister of the day—what one minister thinks appropriate will vary from minister to minister.

Indeed this amendment would create an industry for vexatious citizenship applications that the minister would need to consider. Anyone could put in an application for citizenship which would have to be personally seen by the minister and there would be absolutely no restriction on who could apply as long as you had a visa—you would not even have to be in Australia.

Also by moving these amendments they have completely contradicted themselves. They supported the government in closing off the ministerial discretion for children under 18 because it was being misused by a group of people who want to prolong their stay in Australia, yet they proposed to create another power which would allow the same people to apply to the minister for citizenship under a different provision.

On the other hand, the amendments that I have introduced by way of a special residence requirement for people engaged in specified activities or a particular kind of work provides a specific legal framework and clear eligibility requirements which will ensure that the special residence requirement is used appropriately and only applied to the group of people for which it is intended.

It will also ensure that applicants have spent some time in Australia and that they have an ongoing connection with Australia.

The proposed special residence requirements aim to strike the right balance in facilitating Australian citizenship for those who are unable to meet the general residence requirement due to the nature of their occupation yet who genuinely ‘call Australia home’ and wish to formalise that relationship with Australia by becoming Australian citizens.

The bill deserves the support of all members of this parliament.

I commend the bill to the chamber.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009. Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, as a member of the coalition, you would know, like others on this side of the chamber, that we introduced a citizenship test several years ago to ensure that noncitizen Australians understood the roles and responsibilities and obligations of citizenship when they had served a period of time, a residency requirement, in Australia; when they had been of good character and when they had not been unlawful during their period of time in Australia—and of course there were some other criteria. We wanted to make sure that citizenship held the value in Australian society that it should.

We were concerned that functional English be part of that citizenship test. We felt that it was difficult for a new Australian to understand the values, responsibilities and obligations that go particularly with citizenship—for example, being required to serve on jury duty, to defend the nation if called upon and to vote in the compulsory elections which are held in Australia as part of our parliamentary democracy. To fully participate as an Australian citizen exercising those responsibilities requires functional English, and so we included English testing as part of the citizenship test.

We are concerned about the amendments which are now being rushed through this chamber and which came through from the Senate literally just a few hours ago—in particular the one to do with elite athletes. That amendment is all to do with an obscene, desperate move to ensure that we have Ms Tatiana Borodulina able to have citizenship by 22 September so she will be eligible to compete for Australia at the 2010 Winter Olympics. This is not what our citizenship is all about. We are quite sure Ms Borodulina is a wonderful person. We have no question about how fast she can skate, either. The issue is: should we change the law of this country so people can meet the citizenship requirements—which is demanded of someone joining an Olympics team in Australia or someone competing in certain tennis tournaments. Should we have their residency requirements discounted in order that they can get citizenship faster and then represent Australia in elite sport? We think that that sort of behaviour is unbecoming for the Rudd Labor government. We are somewhat embarrassed that this amendment in the form put up by the government should even be here. But deal with it we will.

If the government feels that simply slightly changing the wording of the amendment—changing the reference from ‘elite sport’ to something called ‘specified activities’—disguises the absolute intent of this bill, you only have to look at the instrument which will be used in deciding who can nominate a person for the special discount allowing them to receive Australian citizenship despite their time in Australia. That instrument specifies that nominations may only be brought forward from Tennis Australia or the Australian Olympic Committee. So I am afraid this is all about elite sportspeople being able to be given citizenship so that they can represent Australia even though they have not in fact served the appropriate time in the country for them to ordinarily be eligible for Australian citizenship.

You can imagine there are a whole range of people who may say: ‘We need medals. We love our medals. We love our sport.’ Let me assure you that the minister himself very quickly understood the embarrassing situation he had put the government in after his first media announcement of this new piece of legislation—the announcement made on 31 August, just a few days ago. In the company of Ms Borodulina, Minister Evans said he hoped the changes would lead to ‘more gold medals for Australia at sporting events’. There was an outcry, of course, across the nation. People said: ‘No, we are not that sort of country. We don’t believe in medals at all costs. We don’t believe our citizenship should be discounted and devalued in that way.’ Minister Evans is astute, and so the very next day the AAP reported these quotations from Minister Evans. In response to the question, ‘Are these measures all about a grab for gold for Australia?’ he said very definitively: ‘No, they are not.’ I am afraid that when the only organisations able to nominate candidates to receive discounted residency requirements for Australian citizenship are Tennis Australia and the Australian Olympic Committee, if that citizenship is required to represent Australia, it is clear that this is sadly just a reference to Australian citizenship for medal prospects.

Quite clearly, the coalition does not support this amendment. On the other hand, we do agree that there are certain circumstances where an extraordinary human being can make an extraordinary contribution to our nation and it might be that, for whatever reasons, they have not been able to serve the four-year residency requirement that goes with an application for citizenship in this country. There was an example where an eminent scientist was serving his time in the Antarctic, which is not counted as Australian territory for citizenship purposes, I understand. He was a very eminent person who wished to become an Australian citizen and there were difficulties with his ability to meet the residency requirements.

We believe there may be a small number of other circumstances where the government of the day might choose to give citizenship to someone who can demonstrate that they have a very significant contribution to make to this nation. Therefore, we say that there should in fact be an amendment to this proposition, and that amendment would allow the minister to use his discretion in circumstances where there is an extraordinary person who is able to make a contribution to Australia and who, in receiving citizenship, will make that contribution to Australia.

We did have discretion like this some years ago, but the problem was that the minister’s discretion was able to be delegated and, in being delegated to a departmental official of the day, that delegation was abused and an unfortunate incident occurred. As a result of that, the ministerial discretion to grant citizenship on the basis of extraordinary national interest was removed, and right now no such discretion exists. We are proposing to amend the bill to reintroduce discretion for the minister, but that discretion would not be able to be delegated at all. It would also be transparent, in that any decision made by the minister to deliver citizenship to a certain person who demonstrated that their citizenship would be in the national interest would have to be both published on the departmental website and tabled in parliament. So there you have a transparent process and a process that cannot be delegated so it is not able to be abused by any other party.

We would also continue to require the person under consideration for that special conferral of citizenship to pass the citizenship test. We believe that that is a proper way to proceed. This amendment has no references whatsoever to how fast the person can skate or how hard they can hit a tennis ball. This discretion has nothing to do with medals to be won in the international arena. It is to do with a ministerial power which we do not expect would be used very often at all but which would be available where a person cannot meet the residency requirements but whose citizenship can be demonstrated to be in the national interest.

We are also concerned that there are people in Australia whose family, partners and children may be Australians and who have called Australia home for years but whose jobs require them to travel often and extensively outside the country. We know that it is difficult for people in those circumstances to apply for citizenship, because they will have great difficulty fulfilling the residency requirements that we now have in the Australian Citizenship Act. We have great sympathy for such people. They may work in the airline industries or the maritime industries—perhaps on oil rigs. We understand the difficulties these people might face. We agree that there should be some capacity for such people who meet certain criteria to gain Australian citizenship though their particular kind of work requires them to extensively travel outside Australia. But that situation, too, should not be automatic; it should be subject to ministerial discretion. We are therefore also proposing to amend the act to include a second ministerial discretion for awarding citizenship to offshore workers who cannot meet the residency requirements but who can demonstrate significant hardship or disadvantage because they cannot become citizens. I therefore move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“the House defers consideration of the bill until the following have occurred: the Government redrafts the bill so that it provides a simple ministerial discretion for those who cannot meet the residency requirements but whose citizenship can be demonstrated to be in the national interest; and the Government redrafts the bill so that it provides a simple ministerial discretion for awarding citizenship to offshore workers who cannot meet the residency requirements, but who can demonstrate significant hardship or disadvantage.”

These are second reading amendments; I will have more detailed third reading amendments when we get to that stage of the bill.

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have now circulated two amendments. There was a third amendment which we were considering, but this bill was, of course, introduced into the Senate. The Greens members in the Senate produced a virtually identical amendment to a part of the bill which originally required us to consider an exemption for citizenship testing for refugees who had come to Australia, had experienced torture and trauma when offshore and were experiencing a temporary physical or psychological disability. We were very concerned about that particular amendment. We felt that it would not serve the interest of the new refugee settlers at all, because they—particularly women from culturally very conservative backgrounds—might have found it a lot more difficult to find access to English language classes.

We were also concerned, given that these particular refugees who had experienced torture and trauma still needed to be in Australia for four years before applying for citizenship. So describing their condition still as temporary was rather problematic. So we moved an amendment to the effect that people with a permanent or long-term physical or mental incapacity be exempt from sitting the Australian citizenship test. You will understand in my reciting those words that there is no reference to refugees or people experiencing torture or trauma offshore. We felt that that was not an appropriate way to go The Greens felt likewise and their words were identical except that they substituted the word ‘long-term’ with ‘enduring’ physical or mental incapacity, so we were happy to support the Greens amendment, it being virtually identical to ours in sentiment. Therefore in the Senate we supported the amendments which changed ‘permanent physical or mental incapacity’ to ‘enduring physical or mental incapacity’ in relation to exemption for sitting the citizenship test.

We are very concerned about maintaining the integrity of the citizenship test, as I said before. We are very concerned that we never have our citizenship held in contempt. We do not believe that Australia, indeed a sports-loving nation, would appreciate having citizenship played with in a way that gave non-citizen elite athletes special concessions so they could compete in our name despite not having undertaken residency requirements that are required of all those who seek to reside permanently in this country as Australian citizens. We have deliberately not put a whole set of criteria around our amendment which gives a discretion to the minister to consider people whose citizenship would be in the Australian public interest. We have not put a great framework of special requirements around such consideration for the minister, because we believe in the integrity, transparency and accountability of the minister of the day, and I find it quite extraordinary that the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services a minute ago implied that the minister, in using that discretion, would not take on board the character of the person or whether or not they were appropriate to consider for Australian citizenship. It is quite an extraordinary indictment of the minister of the day to suggest that he could not make an appropriate assessment or judgment.

We have, however, bound the residency requirements to our amendment for a person who is required to work offshore. There are a number of special residency criteria in our amendment. I refer to those. A person is eligible to become an Australian citizen if the minister is satisfied that granting a certificate of Australian citizenship includes meeting a range of residency prerequisites. They include that, at the time the person made the application, the person was engaged in work that requires them to regularly travel outside Australia; the person was engaged in that kind of work for a total of at least two years during the period of four years immediately prior to or before the day the person made the application; the person was ordinarily resident in Australia throughout the period of four years immediately before the day the person made the application; the person was present in Australia for a total of at least 480 days during the period of four years immediately before the day the person made the application; the person was present in Australia for a total of at least 120 days during the period of 12 months immediately before the day the person made the application; and, the person has demonstrated they would suffer significant hardship or disadvantage if they did not receive citizenship.

From these and other criteria—including that the person was not present in Australia as an unlawful noncitizen at any time during the four years immediately before the day the person made the application; the person was a permanent resident for the period of 12 months immediately before the day the person made application; and the person has met the requirements of subsection 2A of the citizenship test—you can see that we have bounded the ministerial discretion and that in the case of a person who must work offshore those boundaries are substantial. When the parliamentary secretary stood here and said that we had not looked carefully at what other criteria had to be considered, that was completely disingenuous. I can only imagine that the parliamentary secretary had not read our amendments. That of course could be possible, because this bill has been so extraordinarily rushed into both the Senate and this House. We understand that if Ms Borodulina is not a citizen by next Tuesday she cannot in fact be considered for membership of the Australian Winter Olympics team.

Let me go back to where I began and say that we believe ministerial discretion is the appropriate way to deal with extraordinary circumstances where people cannot meet the residency requirements which are now to be applied under law when someone is seeking citizenship in this great country. We do not believe that you should trade off the rights to access Australian citizenship in the pursuit of medals for this country. We believe that is an abuse and misuse of the Australian Citizenship Act, and I think a lot of Australians would be embarrassed mightily if they saw this bill, in the form in which it has been presented, passing through this parliament. I therefore urge the government to consider, alternatively, ministerial discretion for someone who can demonstrate that citizenship would be in the national interest.

Let me also repeat that we have great sympathy for people who have to work offshore and who cannot therefore meet our residency requirements. We say that they too should be able to access ministerial discretion. In both cases this discretion should not be able to be delegated to any other party. In both cases any decisions made by the minister must be made transparent by being brought into parliament and also published on the departmental websites. We are supportive of the amendment moved in the Senate which has people with enduring physical or psychological, or permanent physical or psychological, difficulties and who cannot therefore understand and participate in a citizenship test, being exempted. We support that amendment. As I say, we had an amendment that echoed the words, but for one, in the Greens amendment.

There are other parts of this bill that we do support, and the parliamentary secretary referred to those. In particular, there has been some abuse in the past, with parents who have not been eligible for Australian citizenship using a loophole that existed in relation to their children’s eligibility criteria. We support that loophole being closed by this government.

Let me finally say that we must always uphold the integrity of, and show respect for, our citizenship as something that is not a right in this country. It certainly should not simply come at the time when you can tick a box and declare you have met the residency test. Amending a bill to introduce an act so that medals can simply be handed out to those who have a prospect of winning gold for our country in some elite sports event is a contempt in relation to the citizenship status of others in this country. I urge this government to restore the integrity of the citizenship test by accepting our amendments. That would mean that all Australians could continue to be proud of the way our Australian Citizenship Act works and could rest easier knowing that it would not become something to be manipulated by either Tennis Australia or the Olympics committee when they have a prospect who arrives too late into this country to be properly considered as eligible for Australian citizenship. I commend our amendments to the House.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009, particularly because it brings back to the parliament the outcomes of the review that was conducted insofar as the new test that came into being in 2007. When the changes were introduced by the Howard government in 2007 I made a number of comments about the new testing procedures that were ushered in by that bill and pointed to what I believed were some serious shortcomings, particularly focusing on the new requirements for people to become citizens of our nation.

I take a particular interest in the bill before us tonight because my electorate, the electorate of Throsby, is built on a very solid foundation of successive waves of migration to Australia. We have very large numbers of migrants from diverse countries, particularly since the Second World War, who chose to make the Illawarra their home. I also have a personal interest in the measures outlined in the citizenship test review bill because of particular family circumstances and the fact that members of my family were able to become citizens of Australia, and naturalised Australians, under the regime that had applied in this country since the Nationality and Citizenship Act—known as the Australian Citizenship Act—was enacted back in 1949.

My concern was that in the changes introduced in 2007 the very strict requirements of satisfying the test could have had the unintended consequence of disadvantaging people like my family, who came to this country with no language competency but nevertheless were very delighted to become naturalised citizens and made a very significant contribution in their own way to the fortunes of the country. I thought that the onerous obligations in the test that came into being in 2007 might make it much more difficult for people who come to this country as refugees or as migrants—on whatever ground, be it skill or humanitarian—to become fully accepted as Australian citizens. I had this feeling that part of the discourse about the new test that was ushered in in 2007 was that tests had not applied previously. Of course, that was not the case. From the early days, since 1949, there had always been a reasonable test to ensure that people who wanted to become Australian citizens understood their rights and obligations and the privileges of citizenship and also had a basic knowledge of the English language.

As far as I am aware, in previous years applicants were asked to answer questions in simple English regarding their personal particulars, such as how long they had lived in Australia, and they had to understand that citizenship had rights and responsibilities. They were asked to demonstrate basic competency in and adequate knowledge of the English language. The citizenship test must have worked very well up until 2007 because 3½ million people—as I said, including my own family—were granted citizenship under those provisions. My family came to Australia as refugees under the United Nations program and were delighted to become citizens of Australia.

The new test, when it was introduced, brought in much more complex formal procedures. In my view, it required much higher levels of comprehension of the English language and an understanding of history, institutions, traditions and symbols. This went beyond a fair test to become an Australian citizen. The fact that people were required to answer questions by computer—with 20 multiple questions drawn randomly from a bank of 101 questions—raised issues not only about the level of fluency and literacy for many people who come to Australia but also about the need for them to be computer literate. For most people, the test would have been a quite onerous challenge if they had come to Australia without proficiency in the English language and without computer literacy.

So we were moving away from a requirement to have basic English speaking ability and a genuine desire to contribute to the nation to a much more onerous test, which really was a test of literacy that was accompanied by a resource book which required applicants to have a diverse and detailed knowledge of Australian history, culture and values based on this citizenship test resource book. I was very pleased that, on election to government, we agreed after a short period of time—I think it was six months—to appoint an independent committee to review the operation and effectiveness of that test. That committee was chaired by Richard Woolcott.

I want to quote just a few sections of the review’s findings because, in a very objective way, they confirm some of the misgivings that I had stated on the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Bill back in 2007. In the words of the committee, they were gathered to identify and report on any unintended consequences arising from the introduction of the citizenship test, including any barriers which may have been created to the acquisition of citizenship by migrants, refugee and humanitarian entrants to Australia, regardless of background, education, skills or literacy, and to make recommendations to address these barriers if they so found them to be in place.

In their report Moving Forward: Improving Pathways to Citizenship the committee focused on improving the content and administration of the test, the application process for citizenship and, very importantly, ensuring that vulnerable and disadvantaged people were not excluded from becoming citizens because of the onerous requirements of that test. It was interesting to read in the report that statistics showed a decrease in the number of people applying for citizenship since the current test commenced in 2007. The committee commented on the statistics in the following terms: that if this trend should continue, it would be contrary to the bipartisan objective of promoting the taking up of citizenship.

The committee reported on their submissions and consultations. They said:

Throughout the consultations we were struck by the predominance of those representing arrivals in the refugee/humanitarian stream, a group that we soon came to recognise as the most disadvantaged, both by their circumstances and the nature of the … citizenship test which effectively discriminates against them.

They went on to say that their findings:

… are necessarily influenced by those organisations who responded to our invitations to consultation.

They pointed out that, in many of these consultations, the opening statements generally began with firm opposition to any form of testing but, once it was clarified that the government intended to retain some form of testing, people generally agreed on the need for a system of testing that is fairer and more accessible to all migrants, including the most disadvantaged. There was some contention that the current test was biased towards those who were literate in the English language, when the legislation in effect requires only a basic knowledge of the language and in fact became exclusionary in nature.

In commenting on the resource book Becoming an Australian Citizen, which caused me some concern when it was introduced, interestingly, the committee came to the conclusion that the resource booklet was widely criticised. While many said that the book was interesting and provided information of which they had been unaware, most said that it represented a particular view of Australian society and history that might not be shared by all Australians. But, very importantly, as a basis for a test, it was seen to contain too much that was irrelevant to citizenship. There was agreement that the book should be rewritten and divided into testable and ‘nice to know’ sections. Of particular interest to the committee was a view put forward by English teachers and language and educational experts that the book was written at a level of English that was far too high for its intended audience, and that was certainly the view that I had expressed in my contribution on the earlier bill.

In looking at the findings produced by the Woolcott citizenship test review committee, I think they came to a very sensible position that the pledge of commitment should in fact be the centrepiece of citizenship testing, not the level of people’s literacy or understanding of Australian history, its institutions, its detailed political processes or knowledge of famous and legendary heroes, including from the sporting field. All that is very interesting, but it does not really serve the purpose of determining whether a person wants to be and will be an effective citizen of our nation. In making the pledge of commitment, which is the most symbolic affirmation of a person’s desire to become a citizen, a lot flows from that and it will necessarily require that the resource book and the test questions be revised to reflect the new focus on the pledge.

I understand that the resource book will now be developed in two separate sections of testable and non-testable information. The government has accepted the committee’s central finding that the level of English used in the resource book was closer to that of ‘native speaker’ rather than the legislative requirement of basic English. When the current resource book was assessed by linguistic experts it was found to be complex and difficult on a range of measures of reading difficulty. That submission was very forcefully made by teachers who specialise in the Adult Migrant Education Service and who participate in the programs that are run for newly arrived migrants. In future, the testable items will be based on the values contained in the pledge, and the non-testable information, while interesting and useful, will be made available for people to peruse in their own given time when they have the literacy and language skills to be able to delve into all that information in a more practical manner.

The committee also found, confirming a view that I had also held, that the sitting of a computer based test was in effect marginalising some people from becoming citizens. To address this issue, the government will now develop a citizenship course as an alternative pathway for those people whose literacy skills will never be sufficient to sit and pass a formal computer test, even though they might understand English at a basic level.

The bill before us proposes to amend the act in ways that I think will make the test a much fairer and a more genuine test of a person’s desire to become a citizen. It will allow for a small group of people who have suffered torture or trauma to be eligible for citizenship without having to first sit a citizenship test, and rightly so. These people will not have to sit a test if, at the time they make an application, they have a physical or mental incapacity which makes them unable to understand the nature of the application or unable to understand or speak basic English or demonstrate an adequate knowledge of Australia and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship. It involves a small group, and I am pleased that the committee’s recommendation will be reflected on the passage of this legislation.

The bill also, sensibly, proposes to amend the act to streamline the citizenship application process. This was in response to the review committee’s observation that the current process of multiple steps was inefficient both for people sitting the test and for the department. Hopefully, once this legislation is carried, the streamline procedures will mean that applicants will only need to come to the department once, so a much more timely and responsive set of measures will be undertaken when people come to the department to sit the test and apply for citizenship. As has been previously indicated, there will also be a new requirement in the bill, and it is probably a little controversial in that it has aroused some debate in opposition to the proposal. The government has determined that, in future, we will require that applicants under the age of 18 must be permanent residents to be eligible for citizenship by conferral. As I say, this part of the legislation was contested by some members of the committee, but the majority opinion has led the government to also proceed with that amendment.

In conclusion, these amendments are well thought through and they will bring about key changes that complement reforms that are currently underway. The bill will also lead to more streamlined citizenship processes and ones that will deliver more reasonable and fairer outcomes, particularly for many of the potentially more marginalised and disadvantaged groups that come to our nation. As the committee stated in its conclusion:

The Committee considers that the government should encourage permanent residents to become citizens and be included as full legal members of the nation. To that end, any testing process should be encouraging participation and a sense of inclusion by learning more about Australia and the meaning of the Pledge, rather than excluding people or preventing them from taking the Pledge to become Australian citizens.

The changes proposed in the bill before us this evening will give effect to the objectives enunciated by the committee and the very thoughtful recommendations it has presented to government which, in my view, warrant bipartisan support.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak tonight on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009. I think many of us have been involved in citizenship ceremonies and have welcomed new Australians to the team at local government offices or even in our own offices around the country. That is always a great moment. When I have the honour of conferring citizenship as part of the final ceremony for people who are becoming Australians, what I always like to emphasise is that the good thing about being an Australian is that you have rights. There are a lot of rights. There are a lot of benefits to being an Australian; there is no doubt about that. But there are also great responsibilities. I think it is important that all Australians, whether they are new citizens or whether they have been born citizens, acknowledge those responsibilities. The citizenship test was one of those responsibilities. It was an obligation for people to appreciate this country on a number of different levels.

During the citizenship ceremonies within the electorate of Cowan, I sometimes wonder whether in making the pledge to Australia some people truly understand what it all means. That is the reason I think the introduction of the citizenship test was actually quite a positive thing. Indeed, you might also consider when people sit the citizenship test, particularly if they have come through the humanitarian stream with a non-English-speaking background, that it is a test or an assessment of the English language programs that are provided. You could almost look upon it as a test of whether our systems are working in bringing more people to Australia and helping them to integrate into the community, with the advantages and the opportunities that this great country offers.

I think it is important that I now speak a little more specifically about the bill. As I said before, I do welcome the opportunity to speak on the subject and particularly on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009. I preface my remarks with comments that a lot of people in Cowan bring to me. These are not just my feelings; there are a number of topics that the people in the electorate of Cowan feel are important enough to bring to me, whether it is in the shopping centres I visit, in my office, by email or by telephone calls. There is a concern about the integrity of the Australian immigration system and our border security measures, which a lot of people, including me, feel have been severely damaged by the attitude of this government and the changes that have been made to our immigration policies.

Eighteen months ago there were reports of the Christmas Island immigration facility being something of a white elephant—yet how things have changed. It is now full to overflowing, and the reason is clear. It seems that out there on the Arafura Sea the Australian government has effectively turned on the green light to people smugglers. The people smugglers have been putting up ‘open for business’ signs, and it seems like the federal government has handed them to them.

To restate my position on these matters, I will go back to previous speeches I have made with regard to certain people who try to arrive here on boats. I remind the House that Afghanistan has no ports. You cannot get on a boat in Kabul or Kandahar, but you can drive into Pakistan. You can go to an airport in Karachi or Islamabad and fly to Malaysia or to Jakarta. That is possible, but I cannot reconcile the claim of fleeing alleged refugees waiting in an airline departure area when a stop somewhere along the way would allow a claim for refugee status to be handled in the normal and legitimate ways. Although that point is a departure from this bill, given the strains on the existing facilities caused by the government’s soft and equivocal approach, it is entirely relevant.

I will, however, turn to the bill now, and there are three components of particular interest in it which I will cover. Firstly, I would mention that the bill provides for a reduced period of residence for certain persons in special circumstances so these persons can then become eligible for Australian citizenship. I believe that this is referred to as the ‘special event’ amendment. The second component is to amend citizenship residency requirements for people engaged in particular kinds of work requiring extensive travel outside Australia, including oil rig workers, pilots and, I believe, professional athletes. The third component is with regard to people with a permanent or long-term physical or mental incapacity being exempt from sitting the Australian citizenship test where they cannot understand or complete the test.

I will begin with making comments on the special event amendment that, as I understand it, has been included in this legislation to give consideration to a Russian speed skater, Ms Tatiana Borodulina, who requires Australian citizenship by next Tuesday, 22 September, in order to meet the qualifying period for competing in next years’ Winter Olympic Games. The legislation in this part would serve to reduce the residency requirement after the minister receives a notice in writing from a person in a senior position in the Australian Olympic Committee or in Tennis Australia. After that notification, the minister can allow citizenship if the applicant has been a resident in Australia for two years and, broadly speaking, has collectively spent 180 days within the country.

It is worthwhile to examine this component of the legislation. I worry a little bit about whether there is a greater risk of further doors being opened and a precedent being set by enshrining this in this manner. I think that the ministerial discretion—what we are proposing, what the member for Murray has proposed—can examine these matters on a case-by-case basis. I just feel that it may be an athlete now, but the risks included in passing control beyond the minister, as is proposed by the government, may include a long line of imported athletes as well as claims beyond the Australian Olympic Committee and Tennis Australia. As it currently stands, if we leave just the Australian Olympic Committee and Tennis Australia in there, then I worry further about what other sort of person—that we might otherwise consider, or that the minister might consider as a good, appropriate, very beneficial person for Australian citizenship—might be lost. It is my view that this is a risky course of action and that the minister should be prepared to justify decisions on a case-by-case basis, utilising the delegations that have been proposed by the member for Murray.

With respect to the second component, which relates to certain persons engaged in employment that requires them to travel outside Australia and who previously have become residents, I can say that I support this sort of consideration. Certainly, if oil rig workers or pilots cannot satisfy the time requirements for eligibility of citizenship and they cannot do that because of their employment, some consideration is warranted under the way that we propose it. I say that because in Western Australia we have many oil rig workers and pilots, and certainly we do in my electorate—there is no doubt about it. They should not have their citizenship delayed or suspended because of the necessity of their employment and earning that living for their families. It is right however that those in these forms of employment should have such consideration. However, it would be better for this bill to be amended to allow ministerial intervention in individual cases as proposed by us. That being said, before each case comes to the minister they should have been here for four years, including having spent a minimum of 16 months onshore. I therefore advocate the use of ministerial intervention in this case.

I will now turn my attention to the third component of the bill. That component relates to people with a ‘permanent or long-term physical or mental incapacity’ being exempt from sitting the Australian citizenship test. Although it is understood that the government has agreed to recognise our concern and remove any reference to ‘torture and trauma’ on refugees as the only qualifying criteria for exemption of people from the test, they have done that only where this condition is not permanent. Beyond that change, the coalition will seek to amend the bill, replacing the government’s amendment to ensure that an exemption will only occur for those with a permanent or long-term physical or mental incapacity, not those with a temporary disability.

I have made my position and the coalition’s position clear on this bill, but before I conclude I would like to reflect on the feelings of my constituents regarding related matters. A great many of my constituents continue to raise with me the issue of border security and the integrity of the immigration system. They do that because they are sick of the boats arriving in our waters and they remember when this was not the case.

With regard to the bill, I urge the government to accept the coalition’s amendments, because they will preserve the integrity of our immigration system and ensure the accountability of the minister, in whom responsibility for this system must in all cases reside.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to speak for a few minutes this evening and continue tomorrow in relation to the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Test Review and Other Measures) Bill 2009, which is important in terms of the amendment to the Australian citizenship legislation.

I listened to the member for Cowan. I just want to tell him that we take very seriously the responsibilities of the defence of Australia and border protection. We take responsibility for the fact that we have constitutional obligations under section 51 of the Australian Constitution. We were elected on a platform of an alliance with the Americans, our engagement with Asia and our partnership with the United Nations. We have taken those obligations seriously in every term of a Labor government since Labor has ever been elected to power in this country. To claim that we would somehow open the floodgates to our borders and allow people to come to this country in some way is nothing short of disgraceful. It is not the Labor Party’s policy. It has never been the Labor Party’s policy. We are, by this legislation, improving the integrity and the fairness of the citizenship criteria and testing for those wonderful people who come to this country and want to make a contribution.

I say to the member for Cowan that the most common way that a person will come to this country and be illegal is by overstaying their visa—often dressed like any one of us here in this chamber. For him to use this legislation as a vicious attack on the Labor Party’s integrity, our defence of the realm and border protection is appalling. We take our responsibilities extremely seriously in this regard. The Australian Labor Party has been committed to ensuring there are no unnecessary barriers or extensive delays to the acquisition of citizenship. I was a delegate to the national conference of the ALP, this time and last time. We passed resolutions to include in our national platform the intention to support an inclusive citizenship process for new migrants.

I say to the member for Cowan and to all those people listening that we are determined to do this, because we think this is equitable and because we think this is fair in the circumstances. We want to make sure that those people who have come to this country—the six million people who have come to this country since World War I and who play such an important role in the life and community of this country—can get citizenship. I am very glad that four million of them have actually attained citizenship since World War II.

Debate interrupted.