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

I want to indicate that the Australian Greens will be supporting these amendments. It is very difficult for senators who are being asked to vote on this citizenship test to determine whether or not we think the system for creating the questions is appropriate because, as Senator Bartlett has pointed out, we do not know what the questions are going to be. Even though there are sample questions at the back of the government’s document, it is hard to know how hard or easy they will be because we do not know what the multiple-choice options will be. The multiple-choice options can make the question easy or, indeed, can make the question hard.

A range of educators have appeared before the Senate committee and they have commented on the make-up of the citizenship test. In particular, those who teach English to people for whom English is a second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth language have indicated that they do not see a multiple-choice mechanism as the best way to determine whether or not people’s English language skills are at the level we may want them to be at. I think this amendment tries to bring to the legislation some system of assessing whether or not the right path has been followed in the determination of the questions.

The Greens have raised concerns about lack of transparency in relation to the questions, in the past and in my additional comments, and we have an amendment which deals with that further down the track. I acknowledge that the reason the government do not want to make the questions public is that they do not want people to rote learn them, but it is very difficult for senators and members of parliament to assess whether or not the process is a fair one when they are not able to get an understanding of the types of questions. I acknowledge that there are 20 questions at the back of the booklet, but you cannot really tell how hard or easy they are going to be without seeing them proposed as answers in a multiple-choice question.

There has been a lot of speculation in the community about the questions for the citizenship test and how difficult they will be. I noticed that in one of the Greek newspapers a number of different ethnic community groups were consulted and came up with 50 ethnic Australian citizenship test questions, which I have to say I found pretty informative. They were questions like: ‘How many Greeks were convicted of piracy and sent to Australia in 1829 on the Norfolk, arriving in Sydney?’ The answer is seven. ‘Which Chinese Australian former kangaroo shooter won fame at Gallipoli as a sniper?’