A " Citizenship " Test !

 The Australian population ticked over twenty-five million and yet we have close to a million residents - about half of working age - who do not speak English well.  This is based on the 2016 Census which revealed this lack of English  proficiency grew from 560,000 in 2006 to 820,000 in 2016.

We claim to be a multi-cultural country but the advantages of having a common language is obvious. A person who does not speak adequate English is hard to fit into the Australian workforce and that counts against him or her when applying for employment.  That is vitally important with the expectation that job opportunities will dwindle as the economy struggles to recover from this coronavirus pandemic.

This tended to relegate adults that lacked English to laboring jobs and this class of work is declining. In the distant past many non English speaking households relied on their children as interpreters when the kids went to school and quickly grasped their new language.  Clearly, the non working members of such households never did achieve fluency in the national language.

The intrusion of foreign governments attempting to influence the thinking in Australia is making English language proficiency more important and the government is proposing to extend unlimited language learning classes to close this language gap.  People who do not read or understand English are vulnerable to propaganda distributed from their original country when national objectives clash.

All this raises the question of whether English proficiency should be an influencing factor in gaining Australian citizenship - and that breaches political consensus.  The Federal government attempted a crackdown in 2017 and this was opposed by Labor, the Greens and the Nick Xenophon team.  Once again the need for a value test for intending citizens is creating discord in the ranks of our politicians.

Many people see a need for intending citizens to read and sign a pledge to uphold what we call our " liberal, democratic values " but this crashes in ambiguity.  It means different things to different people and so far we have not  reached anything like a basic consensus.

At present,  citizenship once granted is forever.  We take the risk that this person will be a good citizen and obey our laws, but if we are wrong - there is no way back.  Perhaps citizenship should be more in tune with the way we grade people we license to drive cars.

That starts with a learner license in which the driver gets to gain road experience under the care of an experienced driver.  When they are judged competent they are granted a red " P " license which is hedged with certain restrictions.  If they perform for a number of years without incident, this is upgraded to a green" P " class license and many of those restrictions are lifted, and as further time passes leads to the issue of an unrestricted license.

Citizenship probably deserves a similar experience.  Provisional citizenship would be granted for a qualifying period of time, and should the contender successfully pass  each stage it would proceed to permanency.  It would be a positive incentive for the applicant to obey our laws and be a model citizen.

Gaining accreditation as an Australian citizen is sought by many people and should not be given lightly. What takes time and patience to earn is something people value above all other.  Efforts to gain proficiency in the English language should be helpful in gaining that right to call Australia " home "  !