Policy without evidence? The Australian Citizenship Test 2006-12
Creators: name: Ryan, Kerry
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: This thesis analyses the introduction and operation of the Australian citizenship test. The test, first proposed in April 2006, came into operation on 1 October 2007, after eighteen months of discussion in the parliament and in the public arena. The central argument of this thesis is that while there was some dissension in the parliamentary debates and committee hearings leading up to the introduction of the test, it focused primarily on the minor details of a piece of legislation that was always going to proceed. The Howard government had arrived at its decision to implement a citizenship test long before it sought public input and was committed to introducing the test prior to the 2007 election. No amount of evidence, it seemed, was going to derail or even delay the introduction of an ideologically-based policy, which was implemented despite ample testimony from academics and refugee advocates who warned that the test would be problematic. The thesis also argues that the Australian Labor Party, unwilling in the context of the times to oppose any demonstration of Australian 'patriotism', was a compliant ally in the smooth passage of the legislation through the parliament. What emerged from a superficial and rushed parliamentary process was what many commentators had predicted: a flawed and discriminatory test that adversely affects the more vulnerable individuals in society while privileging others. The thesis also examines the Australian government's use of overseas citizenship testing regimes, particularly those of the United Kingdom, United States, Netherlands and Canada, to legitimise the implementation of its own test. The Australian government, however, had done little or no research into the criticisms of such regimes and was either ignorant or determinedly dismissive of the fact that all were highly contested and contentious. In addition, the government remained unswayed by the fact that little or no evidence exists, or is indeed ever likely to exist, that citizenship tests are effective in achieving their almost universally stated aims of improved social cohesion and migrant integration. In the years since the Australian citizenship test was introduced, successive governments have failed to acknowledge that it is impossible to match a test of knowledge about Australian history, customs and government with the legislative requirement that prospective citizens demonstrate a 'basic knowledge of the English language'. It is a point that was made repeatedly to the Howard government in the lead-up to the test's introduction and a point that has been repeatedly reinforced throughout the life of the test, much of which has been overseen by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments. Such is the scale of the government's ignorance of matters related to language learning and language testing that the 2008 review of the citizenship test, chaired by Richard Woolcott, succeeded only in magnifying the test's already significant shortcomings, resulting in a revised test that is even more discriminatory than its predecessor.