Australia has announced a new citizenship test. Here’s how it will work

2020/09/18 Leave a comment

Note the value-type questions, most being more broadly focussed with one, arguably, being more targeted (readers to judge which one!):

Australia’s citizenship test is getting its first update in more than a decade, with a focus on Australian values.

Announcing the changes on Thursday – which marks Australian Citizenship Day – Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alan Tudge said: “Our Australian values are important. They have helped shape our country and they are the reason why so many people want to become Australian citizens”.

The new questions, which will be included on Australian citizenship tests from 15 November, “require potential citizens to understand and commit to our values, like freedom of speech, mutual respect, equality of opportunity, the importance of democracy and the rule of law,” Mr Tudge said in a statement.

“We are asking those who apply for citizenship to understand our values more deeply before they make the ultimate commitment to our nation.”

What kind of questions will be on the new test?

The updated citizenship test will comprise of 20 multiple choice questions, including five new questions on Australian values. The applicant will be required to correctly answer all five of the questions on values, with a mark of at least 75 per cent overall, to pass the test.

There will be no changes to the English language or residency requirements for citizenship.

Examples of questions in the new values section include:

  • Why is it important that all Australian citizens vote to elect the state and federal parliament?

  • Should people in Australia make an effort to learn English?

  • In Australia, can you encourage violence against a person or group of people if you have been insulted?

  • Should people tolerate one another where they find that they disagree?

  • In Australia, are people free to choose who they marry or not marry?

  • In Australia, is it acceptable for a husband to be violent towards his wife if she has disobeyed or disrespected him?

  • Do you agree that men and women should be provided equality of opportunity when pursuing their goals and interests?

  • Should people’s freedom of speech and freedom of expression be respected in Australia?

These aren’t the exact questions in the test and answers will be multiple choice.

An updated version of the Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond resource will also be made available online to assist those preparing for the test.

Source: Australia has announced a new citizenship test. Here’s how it will work

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Australia: Stripping of citizenship a loss in more ways than one

2016/04/19 1 Comment

Australian law professor George Williams on the lack of due process in citizenship revocation in cases of terror or treason:

The job of resolving whether a person has engaged in conduct like this would ordinarily fall to a judge. We ask judges to take on this role because a person should only lose their liberty or rights in a democracy as a result of a fair process and a decision by an independent person. In the case of serious crimes involving the possibility of imprisonment, members of the community are also involved through service on a jury.

The Allegiance to Australia Act confounds these understandings. It confers no powers upon judges or juries, instead leaving a vacuum when it comes to determining whether someone has fallen foul of the law. The government has inserted the Citizenship Loss Board into this gap.

This results in a breach of traditional legal principles such as the rule of law and the separation of powers. Unnamed government officials are left to determine whether a person should be banished from the country. To use the words of Chief Justice Warren of the US Supreme Court, public servants are able to impose a punishment involving “the total destruction of the individual’s status in organised society”.

The creation of the Citizenship Loss Board is an Orwellian development, and yet another indication of Australia’s willingness to compromise good governance and basic rights in the name of the war on terror. Measures such as this show how we are losing our sense of perspective. Our goal in countering terrorism is not to maximise security by creating a police state, but to preserve a liberal democracy that safeguards liberties such as freedom of speech and the right to a fair trial. We must not compromise these important democratic values in the name of preserving them.

Our leaders would do well to recall the words of Prime Minister Robert Menzies on September 7 1939, four days after he announced that Australia was at war with Nazi Germany. In introducing an extraordinary new law to safeguard the nation’s security, he warned that in the battles to come “there must be as little interference with individual rights as is consistent with concerted national effort”. He concluded that “the greatest tragedy that could overcome a country would be for it to fight a successful war in defence of liberty and to lose its own liberty in the process”.

Source: Stripping of citizenship a loss in more ways than one

Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with , ,