Instead of answering the basic questions about Australia’s political structure, parliament, election and perfunctory duties of a citizen, Australian citizenship aspirants may now have to deal with a more specific test that reportedly aims to examine whether they have integrated with the Australian way of life and the social values.
The 20 multiple-choice-question citizenship test may soon be replaced by a tougher new test to stop extremists from gaining Australian citizenship. The new will be more specific and ask migrants whether they have been working, their children attending school and whether their spouse is attending English lessons.
According to media reports, a ‘high-level’ initial meeting on visa reform took place earlier this week at Parliament house in Canberra.
There have been growing concerns about extremism and radicalisation of the youth in Australia.
On Friday, reports emerged of the arrest of Melbourne man, Neil Prakash, also known as Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, an ISIS recruiter. The Fijian of Cambodian descent was earlier thought to have died in a drone attack six months ago. Prakash is thought to be the most influential ISIS recruiter from Australia. He travelled to Syria in 2013 to fight for ISIS.
Last year, a 15-year-old school boy shot dead a police account outside New South Wales police headquarters in Parramatta. In 2014, an Iranian migrant was shot dead by police after he held several people hostage in Lindt Cafe in Sydney CBD.
Currently, applicants are granted Australian citizenship if there’s no criminal conviction recorded against them. The government has already passed a law to strip ‘terrorists’ with dual nationality of Australian citizenship.
The existing citizenship test was put in place in 2006 by the Haward government to ensure the new citizens had “a working capacity” in English.
