English tests for Australian citizens will not help - 13th June 2017
English tests for Australian citizenship will do nothing to help
migrants
Hundreds of thousands of pre-war migrants to Australia didn’t speak English. Picture Vern Thompson
Theo Theophanous, Herald Sun
July 13, 2017 9:00pm
Subscriber
only
THE push to introduce tough English language tests to gain citizenship
runs counter to a key principle. It is encapsulated in Martin Luther King’s
dream of living in a country where people are judged not by the colour of their
skin but by the content of their character. Equally, it is wrong to judge
people by their language, their religion or ethnicity. So far as citizenship is
concerned, only character should matter.
Nor can character be gauged by length of stay in Australia: four years
rather than one — or, as Pauline Hanson proposes, 10. There are much more
substantial measures of character: no criminal record or references from
community or religious elders or employers.
Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton may think they are on a winner with
this new policy but I think they have got it horribly wrong and hundreds of
thousands of post-war migrants who came to Australia with parents of courage
and character but no English may tell them so at the ballot box
To children of non-English-speaking migrants, it is jarring to think
that only English speakers make worthy citizens. This is tantamount to saying
that our migrant parents of exceptional character, but no English, do not deserve
to be Australian citizens.
The English test for citizenship is only one example of how the threat
of Islamic terrorism has accelerated our move towards cultural insularity. The
damage done by Islamic fundamentalists to our community goes well beyond the
carnage they cause.
Parties like Pauline Hanson’s One Nation play on this fear for political
gain. The Greens are no less opportunistic in their feigned support of
immigration as they try to expand their appeal beyond hipsters in inner-city
seats.
Contrary
to what Pauline Hanson thinks, character cannot be gauged by length of stay.
Picture: Kym Smith
Surely there are wise Liberals who can see that the new citizenship test
benefits both of those extremes, but is fool’s gold for their party.
Beyond the politics, these kinds of proposals are creating a hegemony
based on exclusion, superiority and language condescension. It is a step back
from the ideals most Australians have come to accept of valuing diversity,
character and hard work within a multicultural society.
If we uncritically accept the new language test, we will be acceding to
the moral superiority of English in a way that has not occurred since the early
settlers set about destroying Aboriginal languages.
Even if we want to test character through some kind of Australian values
test, why can it not be taken in French or Chinese or other languages?
Australian values, like mateship, democracy, a fair go and cross-gender respect
are universal values not peculiar to one country or language.
In the past 15 years alone we have granted permanent resident visas to
more than 1.5 million people. Many, and others who came before them, are not
citizens and cannot vote. It is undemocratic to have so many people living permanently
among us, paying taxes, contributing to our society and economy and yet
excluding them from any say in who governs them. If New Zealand can give its
permanent residents a vote, as it has for decades, we should too. If the
federal government won’t act, a state government should take the lead and give
its permanent residents the vote after a qualifying period.
Instead I fear we not only exclude these people but also send a message
to our children that only English matters.
Australia is among the least successful countries when it comes to
teaching second languages. The number of year 12 students studying a second
language has dropped from 40 per cent in the 1960s and ’70s to only 12 per cent
today. Overall, Australia is way behind relative to the 90-100 per cent
second-language teaching in most European and many American schools.
We are disadvantaging young Australians with this focus on the primacy
of English. Research has shown that knowing a second language is beneficial to
cognitive development and cultural sensitivity. We talk about multiculturalism
and engaging with the world, but the vast majority of our children receive a
monolingual education where the literature, art and thinking of other languages
and cultures is hardly referenced.
I think back to the time of Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser when
multiculturalism gained bipartisan acceptance and initiatives like non-citizens
voting in local government elections and the introduction of
non-English-speaking branches in the ALP occurred.
To build on that tradition we should allow permanent residents to vote
after a qualifying period.
We should also introduce compulsory second-language teaching in primary
and secondary schools, alongside programs to teach migrants English.
If we want to make Australia an economic and moral powerhouse in the
world we should aim for all of us to be at least bilingual. And we should give
voting rights to all those people to whom we have granted the right to live
permanently among us.
Theo Theophanous is a former state Labor government minister
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