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  • Commercial properties line the western side of Sydney's Central Business District in Australia, August 16, 2017.

    Commercial properties line the western side of Sydney's Central Business District in Australia, August 16, 2017. | Photo: Reuters

Published 15 August 2017
Opinion
The recent announcement of proposed changes in citizenship test caused a new uproar of condemnation in social media by civil society.

The incumbent Liberal government has been seen as at its odds with migrants since it was first elected. The consecutive actions start from attacks on the Section 18C and amendment of Citizenship Act and go into tightening up migration visas, leading to last but not least, amending the test structure for citizenship.

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The constant stirring of immigration issues by Immigration Department and ministers drew criticism from human rights and civil society activist from time to time. However, the recent announcement of proposed changes in citizenship test caused a new uproar of condemnation in social media by civil society and migrants’ communities.

In his statement, Mr. Peter Dutton, while describing the fallacy in the current test system, urged a re-invigoration of the test to make it capable of examining the applicants’ aptitude for adopting Australian values. One aspect of the proposed test is to include English proficiency evaluation with a threshold required for getting admission into a university. The minister perceived these measures are necessary for bringing harmony in the society.

Undoubtedly harmony in society is paramount, but all of a sudden, a partisan debate singles out migration and makes one scratch their head and wonder if it has a real relation to upcoming likely changes in citizenship test espoused.

It is interesting to note that while the honorable Minister argument that English language capabilities would be a significant help for employment might be true to some extent, the 2016 census refutes this assertion. A close look at the statistics of the languages of two fastest contributor countries of migrant’s population in Australia - Nepal and Pakistan - helps to understand a relation of English language and economic prosperity. Despite the fact that 69.9 percent of migrants from Urdu speaking background (major language of Pakistan) reportedly having high English language capability, there is a quite tangible disparity in their most common income bracket in comparison to their Nepali counterpart. Only 49.7 percent of those of Nepali speaking background have been identified as having high English language capabilities. However, when it comes to the earnings, Urdu speaking migrants has Nil Income as their most common income bracket, whereas the most common income bracket for Nepali speaking population was $800-$999.

Secondly, the statistics for those speaking Dari, which is mostly spoken by migrants from Afghanistan and also account for one of the major groups of asylum-seekers in Australia, are in-fact doing better than average Australian. The statistics shows that the most common income bracket for Dari speaking population was $150-$299, while on the other hand average Australian falls in “Nil income” bracket. Similarly, for Greek, Italian and Spanish speakers the most common income bracket remained $300-$399. These statistics are corroborated when one visit migrant areas in Australia like Dandenong and Springvale in Victoria; where the economic success stories of citizens with little or no English speaking capabilities can be seen often. It is likely that Mr. Dutton has not visited these places at all before revealing these changes. Therefore, the ministers’ argument for the requirement of higher English standards does not seems convincing.

Secondly, societal integration was also associated by pressing upon the need for higher English language standards. This narrative is in direct contradiction with one such earlier statement by the Immigration Minister himself regarding refugees in which he said, "…These people would be taking Australian jobs.” Now with higher English language capabilities, the chances are higher that they would snatch Australian’s jobs in even greater numbers, thus causing more frictions.

Moreover, we have seen that most of the terror attacks on Western soil were committed by home-grown native English speakers. Mr. Dutton’s own statement is on the record in a speech at Lowey Institute saying, “Australia had a problem with ­second and third-generation ­migrants who became extremists.” Obviously, the generation referred to here had command of the English language. These domestic factors do not seem to support the lines uttered by the Minister for an extraordinary need to introduce such a high level of English language proficiency test to become an Australian citizen.

Since the phenomenon of migration has also had its strong correlation with international dynamics and it is beyond doubt that the ripples of this current would not have had its effects on the process of citizenship. Radical scholars like Zillah Eisenstein link the definition of citizenry with corporate consumerism. Elaboration of such narrative is reflected in a statement of one of the mining magnates of Australia, Lang Hancock. Mr. Hancock suggested a solution for Australian Aboriginals (who had not articulated themselves with the consumerism), “herd them in area and put a chemical in their water so that would be sterilised and none of them would be left." Recently, after three decades, a benign mutation of Lang Hancock’s solution also appeared as a slip of the tongue of incumbent immigration minister Peter Dutton while speaking regarding the citizenship test, he expressed the aspiration in these words: “we need to see… if they are able-bodied and of working age, whether or not they are engaged in work or whether they have had a long period of time on welfare." In plain words, whether the new citizens are capable of part of the ‘consumerism’ or not; if not they should be filtered out. So far, reports reflect that consumption generated by migrants is in conformity with the aspirations of government. The Department of Citizenship report issued in 2011 shows that migrants who arrived in Australia in 2009-2010 showed a positive fiscal contribution which would inflate up to $1.2 billion by next decade. Thus here also the situation seems favorable for the aspiration of government.

Another aspect probing into the current rhetoric of incumbent Australian government is the current change in direction of globalisation. One such paradigm is that the new era of globalisation led by the China, which would hypothetically mean that flow of wealth would be from Australia to China. This is quite obvious especially with China’s new initiatives such as the One Belt-One Road project and Asian Infrastructure Bank. These changed dynamics seems to be impacting Australia’s internal migration phenomenon as well. With China’s rise, it is likely that wealth would transfer to the ‘opposition’s club.’ And in such times theorists suggest that the Delinking approach - where countries adopt a defensive stance, try to recoil themselves, stop floating their recourses across and pace up their capabilities to catch up with nations ahead - can be adopted. The roar of ‘protectionism’ does suggest that Australia is also not immune from it.

Such Delinking approach is coherent with another aspect of Census 2016’s results. According to the results,  the Australian population born in China is the largest overseas born population among the non-English speaking countries and accounts for about 8.3 percent of total overseas born population of Australia. However, the census shows that only 41.4 percent of the Mandarin speaking population actually hold Australian citizenship despite being among the top five languages spoken in the country other than English. Moreover Mandarin speakers remained lowest amongst the top five languages speaking population who are identified as having high English speaking capabilities, which reflects that there is more need but less ability for being an Australian citizen. Although, there was a common perception that government wanted to bar a particular ethnic group (Islam) in Australia, especially after all these ‘terror exercises,' 81.1 percent of the Arabic speaking population already had Australian citizenship. This means that the proposed measures of citizenship tests would not affect this group of the population to a great degree.

These results can quite comfortably infer that if the English testing recommendations go ahead, it would mostly affect those particular groups of the population whose make up the great number of people are not yet citizens and also have comparatively lower English language abilities, rather than those who are being hyped to be barred.

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So we can see a satisfactory performance of migrants regarding economic contribution despite poor English language capabilities and a degree of irrelatively of overly assertive need of English language for societal cohesion from the above discourse. Nevertheless, upon combining the statistical results of language and nationality groups having either low English and/or lower numeric ratio of citizenship factors with the change in the directions of globalisation, a strong correlation can found. Which reinforces the theory of Delinking and Recoiling in Australian context. It also substantiates the signs of paranoia in the world’s ‘hegemonic club’. It also provides us with reason to realise that sooner or later that world is changing its direction and we are not ready to float along the new wave of globalisation.

Umar Bin Amin has double master’s degrees in Economics and International Development. Umar is a free-lance journalist, social researcher and social justice activist in Australia. You can contact Umar at umarbinamin786@gmail.com.

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