Howard's new citizenship test:
Hyppocratic move and serious set back of multiculturalism
Hyppocratic move and serious set back of multiculturalism
The Howard government's new proposal to introduce a tougher compulsory citizenship test (including test of Australian values) for all new migrants is clear hypocrisy and a serious set back for Multiculturalism in this country.
It is hypocrisy after the Howard government's earlier policies of excluding certain high needs groups such as those on protection visas from attending English classes. The previous introduction of a wide regime of temporary visas, ranging from temporary protection visa to temporary spouse visa and the wide range of bridging visas where all holders of these visas cannot access federally funded English classes. He now says that people are not integrating because they will not learn English.
The other hypocrisy is the introduction of the so called “values test”. In a multicultural society, one wonders which culture would be regarded as Australian and which would be classified as un-Australian. According to a spokesperson for the Social Justice Network (SJN), Jamal Daoud, the Australian values that John Howard speaks of formally including in a citizenship test such as mateship, have already been rejected by the Australian people, “the last time the Australian people voted in a referendum was to reject John Howard’s inclusion of mateship in his proposed constitutional pre-amble – his latest proposal can only be the act of a desperate man wanting to create community division for his own perceived political interests.”
“If the Australian values would be based on the government's values, I would like to be called un-Australian” Mr Daoud further added. “The government's values are ranging from embracing lies, deception, disregarding humane values and embracing racism. All these values were deeply and repeatedly condemned by international and national human rights groups and exposed in the Cole Inquiry into the Oil for Food corruption scandal.”
The new citizenship test, if adopted by Parliament and then implemented, would further the marginalisation of already marginalised people in our society; Arabs and Muslim Australians. The Howard government has a hidden agenda they wish to implement to further attack the weak in our community; evidence of this is the sham community consultation process for the proposed citizenship test changes – the new law was put before the Parliament at the same time that consultation was still occurring, making inclusion of community views impossible. “It is obvious that Howard is not genuine and is duplicitous when it comes to representing what the electorate desires – this brings all political representatives into disrepute”.
It is very clear that the next few elections will be fought on sentiments hostile to Multiculturalism in general, and against Arab and African Australians. It is very clear that all political parties have contributed to these sentiments, by actively participating in the attack on Multiculturalism or by remaining silent. Although Howard’s proposals are negative, Mr Daoud believes that it will inspire some people to stand as independents in the next state election as they are sick and tired of being attacked and marginalized by Howard’s reactionary comments and will attempt to include themselves in our political decision making processes, as nobody else will – a true Australian value! SJN will be active to assist in these campaigns.
For more information, you can contact Jamal Daoud, spokesperson for Social Justice Network, on 0413 467 367
It is hypocrisy after the Howard government's earlier policies of excluding certain high needs groups such as those on protection visas from attending English classes. The previous introduction of a wide regime of temporary visas, ranging from temporary protection visa to temporary spouse visa and the wide range of bridging visas where all holders of these visas cannot access federally funded English classes. He now says that people are not integrating because they will not learn English.
The other hypocrisy is the introduction of the so called “values test”. In a multicultural society, one wonders which culture would be regarded as Australian and which would be classified as un-Australian. According to a spokesperson for the Social Justice Network (SJN), Jamal Daoud, the Australian values that John Howard speaks of formally including in a citizenship test such as mateship, have already been rejected by the Australian people, “the last time the Australian people voted in a referendum was to reject John Howard’s inclusion of mateship in his proposed constitutional pre-amble – his latest proposal can only be the act of a desperate man wanting to create community division for his own perceived political interests.”
“If the Australian values would be based on the government's values, I would like to be called un-Australian” Mr Daoud further added. “The government's values are ranging from embracing lies, deception, disregarding humane values and embracing racism. All these values were deeply and repeatedly condemned by international and national human rights groups and exposed in the Cole Inquiry into the Oil for Food corruption scandal.”
The new citizenship test, if adopted by Parliament and then implemented, would further the marginalisation of already marginalised people in our society; Arabs and Muslim Australians. The Howard government has a hidden agenda they wish to implement to further attack the weak in our community; evidence of this is the sham community consultation process for the proposed citizenship test changes – the new law was put before the Parliament at the same time that consultation was still occurring, making inclusion of community views impossible. “It is obvious that Howard is not genuine and is duplicitous when it comes to representing what the electorate desires – this brings all political representatives into disrepute”.
It is very clear that the next few elections will be fought on sentiments hostile to Multiculturalism in general, and against Arab and African Australians. It is very clear that all political parties have contributed to these sentiments, by actively participating in the attack on Multiculturalism or by remaining silent. Although Howard’s proposals are negative, Mr Daoud believes that it will inspire some people to stand as independents in the next state election as they are sick and tired of being attacked and marginalized by Howard’s reactionary comments and will attempt to include themselves in our political decision making processes, as nobody else will – a true Australian value! SJN will be active to assist in these campaigns.
For more information, you can contact Jamal Daoud, spokesperson for Social Justice Network, on 0413 467 367
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