Thread: Australia outlines citizenship rules

SYDNEY Australia announced plans Sunday to toughen its citizenship policies but denied that new demands requiring immigrants to pledge allegiance to Australian values were aimed at Muslims.

Immigrants would have to take a 45- minute test covering their competence in English and subjects like democracy, the rule of law and the equality of men and women, under the government blueprint.

The time immigrants have to live in Australia before they can become citizens will be doubled to four years, if the proposals become law.

Andrew Robb, the parliamentary secretary for immigration, issued a discussion paper that will be circulated among lawmakers in Canberra before legislation is drafted. A vote on a measure could be held later this year.

"Australian citizenship is a privilege," Robb said in an interview with the Nine television network.

"It tells who we are, where we fit in the world," he said. "It is a unifying force in Australia and if we give it away like confetti it is not valued."

Prime Minister John Howard - who has repeatedly complained that some members of Australia's 300,000-member Muslim community have refused to integrate fully into Australian society - has expressed his support for legislative action, saying that "cultural diversity should never come at the expense" of national identity.

The government blueprint was the latest development in a long-running debate about immigration in Australia, where more than 20 percent of the population was born overseas.

It follows a recent crackdown on illegal immigrants and concerns that extremist Islamic views could be gaining a foothold in some ethnic communities.

Howard has also expressed the fear that Australia could be subject to a terrorist attack by some of its own citizens, similar to the London bombings in July last year.

Robb denied that Muslims were a specific target. "This initiative for a citizenship test is not designed to deal with any particular segment of our community; it's not an initiative which grew out of issues to do with the Muslim community," he said.

He also said it was not specifically aimed at combating terrorism.

"This is not an anti-terrorism initiative. But he added: "This will help, I think. Any unified society can deal more fully with terrorism."

The proposals, he said, were aimed at giving comfort to Australians who felt their sense of identity threatened by the growing movement of people around the world and increasing immigration from "nontraditional source countries."

On Saturday, Robb urged Australia's Islamic leaders to preach in English, said they could not ignore "vile acts" committed in the name of their faith and must do more to denounce extremism.

He told a gathering of more than 100 imams that while many in the Muslim community had spoken up, "too many are silent."

Howard said Friday that people who genuinely wanted to fit in would have no problem with the government's blueprint. "Certainly we are going to lift the waiting period to four years, there will be a fairly firm English language requirement, and the paper itself will contain quite a number of issues," he said.

"It won't become more difficult if you're fair dinkum," he said, using Australian slang for "genuine."

"And most people who come to this country." he added, "are fair dinkum about becoming part of the community."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/17/news/migrate.php

Wish ours would make a firm stance like this.

"It tells who we are, where we fit in the world," he said. "It is a unifying force in Australia and if we give it away like confetti it is not valued."

Exactly, and that's what Bush and Co. want to do...start throwing the confetti around. There's NO reason to give someone citizenship that is going to maintain dual citizenship with another country. If things get bad in the U.S., then they run back to Mexico and vice-versa. Dual citizenship should NOT be allowed.

I agree that dual citizenship merely justifies conflict of interest. I also think that since all anchor babies currently hold dual citizenship, that they should be deported along with their illegal alien parents. Once we have built the wall and strict, genunie enforcement begins the 14th amendment should be repealed.

Dual citizenship is out !!

We need to schedule a trip for GWB to visit Australia ASAP.
Spending some time with someone of the calibar of Prime Minister John Howard would be very, very good for him....and us.