The barriers go up

This means that an African refugee, without adequate travel papers, may have to wait four rather than two years to obtain a valid passport and be able to visit a sick or dying relative overseas.

Shortly we also expect to see legislation mandating a much higher level computer-based English test, as well as an Australian knowledge test. This test will mean that a large number of migrants, and in particular the minority refugees component of our immigration program from non-English speaking backgrounds, will fail to become citizens. People without good English language skills will fail the test.

As the prominent Victorian Liberal MP Petro Georgiou said last week this is a test that many Australian born citizens would also fail. This is because the new test will require the extra skills of reading and responding to written English, further to the existing requirement for spoken English.

With one and a half million Australians from English speaking backgrounds having very poor literacy standards they may well fail such a test. Thankfully they will not have to reapply for their Australian citizenship under this new model!

No one from the migrant sector is saying English language is not important. On the contrary, English language acquisition is hugely important: important for jobs, important for training, and important for successful integration. But surely the aim of the government should be teaching rather than testing.

Migrants themselves want to learn English. No one enjoys sitting in queues or shopping and not being able to communicate with other people. Sometimes however, age, family commitments, long work hours or existing learning difficulties may prevent the quick acquisition of English for some people. For some people learning English can take a lifetime. Some may never get there!

The Government seems determined to use the stick approach by linking citizenship to a higher level English test that we know many people will fail.

Why not use the carrot approach of more flexible adult migrant English programs. Who knows we could maybe even remove the late night adult movies from SBS and have practical English lessons for new migrants! SBS might actually meet their charter obligations.

And we should never forget migrants’ kids generally have good English. In fact, journalist and author George Megalogenis has shown the sons and daughters of post-war European migrants have on average higher levels of education than their more established Australian counterparts.

The proposed citizenship laws are in my view an ill-conceived attempt to tap into the current climate of fear in our community, in this a federal election year.

The laws will do zip all to reduce the threat of terrorism in Australia. If anything they may well encourage a culture of exclusion among certain refugee communities that may have negative effects on our social harmony further down the track.

Australia is actually a world leader in successfully integrating migrants into our community. Sure each wave of migrants presents new challenges. Many schools in our larges cities are presently facing the challenge of schooling refugee kids from Africa who may have unique learning and literacy problems.