Over the last few days, a couple of stories in the news have caught my eye. One was Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s visit to Indonesia and Japan, and the other was a very interesting article by one of Australia’s top diplomats in regard to the flawed testing procedure for those seeking Australian citizenship. Both these news stories highlighted two things to me. How much damage the previous Howard government has caused in relation to not only immigration in Australia, but also to our relations with the asian region. Two, it highlighted to me just how big a job Kevin Rudd has to smooth over relations with Asia, and to truly make Australia a friendly, warm and open country in the region.
There is this unfortunate habit with conservative governments all over the world, and that is to be racist, whether that be conscious or unconscious. Whenever conservatives are asked about races outside the limited sphere of ‘white english speaking’, they either plead ignorance, or they are forthright in their criticism. In the case of the Howard government, it gave the impression that it was ‘for all Australians’, but it failed to look after Aboriginal Australians, it looked to the US as a more important friend than the countries of the Asian region, and now we find out that the citizenship test is flawed, and is difficult for migrants to pass; thereby sending a strong message that non-English speaking migrants are not wanted in Australia.
I have said in a previous blog that I get highly offended when Australia is seen as a racist country, but when I hear about the testing procedures for those who wish to gain citizenship, I feel disheartened, and I am banging my head against a brick wall. Former head of the Foreign Affairs Department, Richard Woolcott, has been put in charge of a review of the citizenship requirements for Australia, and he has come up with some blatant bias against non-English speakers:
“Citizens need to have what is called basic English and there’s no doubt that the booklet on which the test is based is way way above basic English,” he said.
“It discriminates very much in favour of people who have been educated in English as a first language.
“There are 20 questions selected at random on the computer. Three of them are mandatory, so you can get 19 right, [which] gives you 95 per cent, and get one mandatory question wrong and therefore fail, so the test is flawed.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/15/2274932.htm
John Howard would never have admitted he was racist. Most people don’t. But actions speak louder than words. If it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see that Australia’s citizenship test if racist, then it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise that the person who approved of such a test was also racist.
The conservatives have already criticised Rudd for being a bit of a ’show off’ when it comes to his fluency in the Mandarin language. Whether he ends up being a good Prime Minister or not, one of his major focuses is foreign relations. Howard and his ministers concentrated heavily on the economy, which of course is important. But a government must do much more than that if it is to be seen as a global player. Rudd is now having to spend at least his early days as PM doing 11 and a half years of catch up for things that Howard failed to do.
Let’s hope it’s not too late to receive a second chance.
Enjoy your day
