Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The process by which the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Testing) Bill 2007 has come to the floor of this House clearly demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of a tired government grasping for an issue with which to play wedge politics yet again and on which to divide Australians under the guise of uniting them. Let me say from the outset that my concern with this legislation stems not from any objection to a more formalised citizenship test, as long as it is reasonably structured, but from what we know of this government’s history of using and abusing sensitive community issues purely for its own political advantage, regardless of the cost and consequences to our community.

The process of this bill’s formation is cynical politics at its worst and an indictment of any government that claims to govern for Australians. When the Prime Minister announced in December 2006 that the government would introduce a citizenship test, he stated that that migrants wanting to become citizens would be required to sit a formal exam in English and answer 30 questions about Australian values, traditions, institutions and history which would be drawn from a pool of 200 questions. I note the presence in the chamber of the honourable member for Corangamite, who comes from the Geelong area, as I do. I would say that he would have difficulty answering 30 questions from a list of 200 from a resource book. But, be that as it may, we are going to have 30 questions about Australian values, traditions, institutions and history, and they will be drawn from a pool of 200. Knowing the government’s ugly history of attempting to deliberately manipulate these sensitive community issues for its own political purpose, the opposition requested a copy of the proposed test, a copy of the 200 questions on the aforementioned matters and a copy of the resource documents from which the government had drawn its 200 questions.

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