Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to take note of one of the documents that was just tabled: the report by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs into the legislation dealing with the citizenship test.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I was involved in the Senate inquiry into the citizenship test. We heard from a range of witnesses—in fact, quite a large number of witnesses. Over 50 submissions were made to the inquiry and a number of witnesses appeared before the committee. The committee heard from those witnesses a number of concerns about this legislation. Firstly, there were arguments put forward by a number of organisations that the bill was not needed. Their view is that the existing citizenship laws are working extraordinarily well and that the government has not made a case for why there needs to be the change that is proposed in the legislation.

As part of that discussion, there was no additional justification provided by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship when it appeared before the committee. There was reference to the fact that there had been consultation—we were all aware of that—and to the fact that citizenship tests exist in other countries, but simply because it is done in other countries is not a justification for why we should do it. In fact, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship was not able to provide any information to the Senate committee about ways in which a citizenship test had assisted with the project of improving the cohesiveness of society in any of the countries to which it pointed as examples of countries which have citizenship tests. Indeed, the committee heard evidence from people who pointed out that perhaps, rather than them adding to the cohesiveness of societies, they had done the opposite. One example that a witness pointed to was from the United Kingdom. That witness spoke about the London bombings and the fact that the people involved in that act were indeed British citizens and may well have been subject to and have passed the UK citizenship test. There was a concern from a number of witnesses—in fact, all of them that I can recall apart from those from the department—about there not being a need for introducing this citizenship test.

There was, beyond that, a concern that the test itself would, rather than helping to assist with improving the cohesiveness of society, do the opposite and be divisive in setting up a mechanism by which some people would be seen to have passed and some people would be seen to have failed. There was one witness, an educator, who talked about this and said: ‘Tests have been developed to gate-keep. That is what they are there for.’ That is a concern that the Australian Greens share about this proposed citizenship test—that it will see the community divided between those who are seen to be deserving and those who are not. This was also a concern raised by FECCA—the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia. They were concerned that the existence of a citizenship test would prevent some people from choosing to make an application to become a citizen. They talked about it creating a two-tiered society through the division that it would create within society. Other witnesses put forward similar concerns.

There was another witness who said that she was worried that it would disenfranchise, disengage and marginalise people and the consequences of that could be to do exactly the opposite of what the test aspires to achieve. There was quite a lot of discussion in the committee about the test as proposed by the government not meeting the government’s own objectives that it outlined in the second reading speech by the minister on this legislation about improving the cohesiveness of society. As I mentioned, some concerns were that a citizenship test would, rather than improving cohesiveness, actually promote divisiveness and discourage people from putting in applications to become Australian citizens.

The other issue that the committee heard about was English language teaching. The government has put forward that the test is not only a citizenship test but an English language test as well and that one of the government’s other objectives is improving the English language skills of migrants. My office has been involved in looking through the information from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Australian Bureau of Statistics about the English language skills of migrants in Australia. We found that they are extraordinarily good and that they have improved over the last 10 years. We have had such an improvement in the English language skills of migrants in Australia that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has actually had to restructure the way that it measures people’s English language proficiency. The English language skills of migrants over the last 10 years have improved so dramatically that the bottom two categories are not useful for the department anymore in assessing people’s English language skills. Far from the picture which the government has sought at various times to paint for us that the English language skills of migrants is an issue that needs to be improved, we have seen over the last 10 years of this government a massive improvement in English language skills.

The committee also heard the concerns that people have about the impact that this citizenship test could have on existing English language programs. The concern put forward—again, by educators—was that, when you put in place a test, teachers teach so that students will pass the test. The concern is that, if we impose a test, the effectiveness of existing English language programs—which require expansion and if we actually wanted to improve migrants’ English language skills the way to achieve it would be by investing in and expanding the English language programs that are available—will be undermined. Rather than teaching people the English language skills that they need to thrive in Australian society and the community—such as understanding Centrelink, how to get a job, how to catch a bus and all of the information that they need to exist in our society—the test will mean that students in those language classes, those who can attend the classes because they do not have family responsibilities or have to be out working, will want to ensure that attending an English language class means that they will be able to pass the citizenship test. As we have seen in other circumstances, the test will change and shift the way in which teaching occurs such that, rather than people learning much-needed skills to survive in Australian society, the teaching will become about helping students to pass the citizenship test.

Those were some of the concerns that were put forward. The government has not put forward a need or a justification for this change. Indeed, our citizenship laws as a whole are working quite well. The example of overseas countries was the only justification put forward to us and the government could not even provide us with an example of how the test had helped in other countries. In fact, we heard evidence to the contrary. Then there was the issue of whether or not the government’s proposed citizenship test would achieve its objectives. We had an extraordinary number of witnesses appear before the committee to say that, no, it would not achieve the objective of improving cohesiveness and that, rather, it was likely to fuel division within our society and undermine existing English language programs. It was a real opportunity for the government to hear from people in the community with expertise in this area, those people who teach English as a second language and know what kind of test you would need to accurately assess somebody’s English language skills. None of them said that 200 multiple-choice questions, of which 20 would be randomly chosen, would be anywhere near an adequate testing regime to assess people’s level of English language proficiency.

Through the Senate committee process, other concerns were raised regarding the level of discretion that, in this case, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has—that is, to write the test and to design the questions. There are no proposals under the legislation for the questions to be tabled in parliament, for them to be made available or for there to be any oversight or assessment of the appropriateness of the questions that are being proposed. That was one of the issues that many of the witnesses went to. Indeed, this matter of needing to ensure that there is some level of transparency and accountability in the operations of the minister is a matter that the Australian Greens addressed in our report on this, which has just been tabled in the Senate. It is worth pointing out that, in the last few weeks, there has been much questioning about the exercise of ministerial discretion by this same minister. The level of ministerial discretion proposed in the citizenship test is extraordinary; it is very expansive in the way it operates. The Senate inquiry heard from a number of witnesses about the concerns that people had about this matter.

It is important to recognise that there were many voices throughout that Senate inquiry that raised numerous concerns, some of which are addressed in the committee report and are certainly addressed in the related report by the Australian Greens. They went to the fact that, if we really want to improve the cohesiveness of society and migrants’ English language skills, we need to invest in the existing programs for English language skills and for people to gain an understanding of citizenship. A test is not going to help us; in fact it is going to make things worse.

Question agreed to.