John Smith wrote on Jan 11^th, 2024 at 11:40am:

The real scandal is not the failure of foreigners to grasp the fundamentals of civic life. The real problem is this is in line with the growing ignorance within this country about the principles that form the bedrock of Australian democracy.

The numbers tell the story.

Data from the Department of Home Affairs shows that just 65 per cent of would-be citizens passed the citizenship test on Australian values between June 2022 and August 2023.

But compare that with the most recent figures on civics proficiency among Australian year 10 students: just 38 per cent made the grade.


Here is why that is a problem:

In 2021, a committee of the NSW Legislative Council produced a report that says “the teaching of Australian history has become fertile ground for promoting social and political issues – including priorities which reflect an ideological bias – at the expense of core facts”.

It found the teaching of history had become “cluttered with educationally questionable source verification, postmodernist theory and political messaging”.

Sir James Crowe --- if'n them Niggruhs cain't wrate, they cain't vote!!  It's just reasonable... like li'l chilluns they jest don' know what they're voting for... but they are cute ...

Well - naturally - I scored 100% in that simpleton test - quite a few here - the ring-ins for today for example - need to review such things and look in a mirror.  Their calling people racist for not kissing Abo arse is as stupid as Smith saying that I vehemently defended Bruce Lehrmann when I defended the proper application of Law...

Since such racist and non law abiding simpletons cannot understand simple things like that - perhaps a turn with the stealth glitch will help them..... a dose of the cat....

BTW - just like that bloke we finally pin-pointed on a drone photo - we now have a name, location and photograph of Lefty the Mad who gets around other sites under other names .... took a while to clear it with the body looking at potential mass murderers to get, but hey - who's complaining?

Australia’s citizenship test is laughably simple for new arrivals, based on the 20-question, multiple choice practice exam available on the Department of Home Affairs website. Given a 75 per cent pass mark – and an easier three, rather than four, response choices – it’s hard to see how anyone could fail it.

What are the colours of the Australian Aboriginal flag? Are men and woman equal under the law? What’s the capital? Is volunteering important because it “strengthens the community” or “is required”? Did Australia become a nation in 1901 or 2001? You get the idea.

Yet incredibly, pass rates on the first attempt have fallen to around 65 per cent since 2022, from 80 per cent in the late 2010s, according to departmental data released last year. I could understand citizens having a tougher time.

I was tempted to answer that the government “tells people which religion to follow” (climate change) rather than the desired “is separate from any religion”. Similarly, I think answering that freedom of speech “is not an Australian value” is more accurate than “underpins Australia’s democratic system”, given the massive crackdown on free speech in NSW and Victoria since last year, where even “severe ridicule” of politically favoured groups is now illegal.

And given much of the bureaucracy can’t even define what a woman is, selecting “men have more rights than women” instead of “are equal” would be understandable. As for “Who can deliver a welcome to country?”, typical price tags well above $1000 (including smoking) might prompt some to answer they are performed by a “master of ceremonies” rather than traditional Aboriginal custodians.

More seriously, the embarrassingly easy nature of Australia’s citizenship test, and the shockingly low pass rates, suggests Australian citizenship isn’t worth as much as it should be. It’s relatively easy to obtain once a permanent resident, yet census data suggest more than a fifth of permanent residents don’t bother becoming citizens after even a decade. Around 11 per cent of Australia’s population is on a temporary visa (2.88 million as of December last year), a massively higher share than in Canada, the US or the UK, and approximately another 5 per cent are permanent residents.

This week the ABS reported more than 467,400 permanent or long-term arrivals, in net terms, for the 12 months to August, the highest-ever level over any 12-month period to August. A big share of these arrivals would be international students, temporary workers and their families eager to obtain not citizenship but permanent residency, which provides the bulk of the benefits of living and working in Australia.

In the 12 months to June, 165,193 people became Australian citizens, including over 33,000 from New Zealand, more than any other nation. Fewer than 5200 mainland Chinese, for instance, became citizens, although more than 655,000 live in Australia. This is understandable given China doesn’t recognise dual citizenship, but to which nation does this very large group owe its allegiance? Were a geopolitical crisis ever to arise in the Indo-Pacific, this would be nice to know.

India similarly doesn’t allow dual citizenship but over 23,000 of around 900,000 Indian residents took up citizenship. The ability to vote is the main difference in rights between citizens and permanent residents, and any rational voter knows his or her vote makes no difference to the outcome. In fact, permanent residency is even better for those residents who don’t want to be fined for not voting.


Australia would be a stronger nation if more of the people living here permanently had signed up properly to Australian values. Indefinite free-riding as a permanent resident shouldn’t be allowed after, say, a decade. HECS loans are not available to permanent residents, but this precedent could be extended much further. Public housing and even Medicare could be restricted only to citizens, saving billions of dollars a year; or permanent residents could pay a higher Medicare Levy. Only citizens should be able to have a say in local planning and to vote in local elections.

Permanent residents and temporary visa holders should be deported to their home countries if convicted of violent crimes. A new probationary citizenship visa could be created: break the law and tumble automatically back to permanent residency. And Australia’s citizenship test could easily be as difficult as the UK’s too; we might not be as old, but we have a rich, complex history, replete with achievements, from the Snowy Mountains Scheme to the early adoption of civil rights for women, at least when we could define them. And we could swap out the question on welcomes to country with one that inculcates the correct understanding of the 1967 referendum.

Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.




If %65 cannot pass the laughably simple citizenship test then we are importing thickos.

Carl D wrote on Oct 17^th, 2025 at 10:52am:



You have to ask for it. It's not like a knighthood.

Carl D wrote on Oct 17^th, 2025 at 11:48am:


What? You are that busy?

Carl D wrote on Oct 17^th, 2025 at 8:02pm:



So you want all the benefits but not the duties.


So you.