John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government discussion paper Australian citizenship: much more than a ceremony has utterly failed to recognise the strengths of our citizenship system. At the same time, no matter how hard they try, the Howard government cannot point to any particular problems the system has. Instead of analysis, the discussion paper is filled with assertion. Instead of addressing the special and particular needs of our society, it talks about irrelevant systems in countries with vastly different migration histories and vastly different societies and social policy circumstances. It posits tests for new arrivals that cannot assess commitment and loyalty and which we would never dream of requiring of existing citizens. Worst of all, it does not reflect the generous-hearted community sentiment that has underpinned the great success of our migration program since 1945.

Making it harder to obtain citizenship does nothing but cramp the ability of new arrivals to contribute to the life and welfare of the country. The citizenship discussion paper is an attempt, one of many by the Howard government, to pander to our worst instincts. The discussion paper says:

… Australian citizenship is the single most unifying force in our culturally diverse nation. It lies at the heart of our national identity—giving us a strong sense of who we are and our place in the world.

This puts the cart before the horse. If simply being a citizen could do all these things, then we should reduce the barriers, rather than raise them.

A genuine and broadly encompassing sense of national identity is a matter of hearts and minds. Citizenship is a formality that recognises that our hearts and minds are in the right place. It is a result, not a cause. Citizenship should not require people to conform to a rigid conception of national identity imposed by government ideologues. It should be founded on a sympathy with the essentials of a society and a willingness to support and contribute to it, everyone as best they can.

We are a pluralist society and that is one of our great strengths. Therefore, the prime objective of public policy should be the provision of assistance to enable those who have adopted Australia to fit comfortably within it as quickly as possible. Australia has a good record in helping new arrivals to adapt to its life and, despite having lost some of the important associated symbols—like the Good Neighbour policy—it is these strengths that we should be building on: better English language training, better assistance with finding employment, better information on the working of the society and better awareness of legal obligations and acceptable community norms.

The discussion paper approaches the provision of these services in a curious way. It asserts that a formal citizenship test covering English language ability and ‘common values’, including ‘the rule of law’ and ‘the spirit of a fair go’ ‘would provide a real incentive to learn English and understand the Australian way of life’. The paper goes on to claim that such a citizenship test ‘could provide the mechanism through which we can be assured that new citizens have sufficient English and knowledge of Australia to maximise the employment and other economic opportunities which benefit the individual and Australia’. That is absolutely spurious. It fails to recognise that new arrivals not able to speak English have every incentive in the world to learn it and that they typically try doing so with great energy and motivation. Making the existing language test for citizenship more formal and more strict would add nothing by way of a further meaningful incentive to learn. Helping migrants to learn English is overwhelmingly a matter of supply, not demand. Moreover, there will always be a significant number of fine new citizens from other countries who simply will be unable readily to pick up a new language, no matter how hard they try.

A test on civics—respect for freedom and democracy, compassion for those in need, the rule of law and what is called the ‘spirit of the fair go’—is even less necessary. It fails to acknowledge that many migrants are attracted to Australia because they have a profound yearning for freedom and democracy and because they have been deprived of them in the places of their birth. It is just possible that many migrants place a higher value on such things and understand them more keenly than long-term citizens who could be inclined to take them for granted. Indeed, there might be a case for further promoting the virtues of freedom and democracy with Australian-born people, especially those trying to con the public into thinking that migrants are second-class citizens who should earn their human rights in artificial ways. If the Howard government are so keen on the idea of a fair go, they might like to apply it to Work Choices or the treatment of refugees.

The discussion paper makes much of higher level language and civics tests for citizenship in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. While they may be of interest, they are less than useful, for many reasons. For example, within the last 10 years the Quebec secessionist movement in Canada came to within an ace of splitting the country in two. The population and societal pressures in the United Kingdom, to a significant extent the consequence of its imperial history and the more recent movement of people from eastern Europe, have no counterpart in our experience. And the United States has immense pressures on its southern borders quite unlike anything in Australia. These examples tell us nothing about our needs, any more than do the practices in those countries with citizenship tests similar to our own.

Australia should design its citizenship arrangements according to what best promotes the interests of our country. With citizenship, of all things, we should be able to stand on our own feet. Language and civics tests will tell us nothing about the fitness of new arrivals for citizenship and its rights and obligations. They cannot measure the willingness and commitment of individuals to strive to do their best for the country, nor can they assess an individual’s loyalty or patriotism.

A prominent commentator has said that the discussion paper ‘embodies Howard’s aspiration to rebalance from multiculturalism to social cohesion’. Just how social cohesion is promoted by applying pointless tests for full entry into the life of the country is not explained. Rather, we should appreciate that those who are prepared, for whatever reasons, to leave their countries and live in Australia are paying us a great compliment. People want to migrate to Australia because they already appreciate what we are and what we stand for.

The government’s discussion paper fails its most fundamental test: it makes no mention whatsoever of practical new measures to better assist migrant integration. The Australian community strongly backs our immigration program, so admirably supported by the existing citizenship system. Making citizenship harder to obtain is a risk to our immigration program and our international reputation. The Howard government is struggling to deal with a host of problems it has on its plate, without deliberately adding to them one that does not exist. The Howard government would be well advised to put the citizenship discussion paper on the shelf and concentrate on real problems that do matter.