Policy without evidence? The Australian Citizenship Test 2006-12 Kerry Ryan Thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Swinburne Institute for Social Research Faculty of Life and Social Sciences Swinburne University of Technology 2013 Abstract This thesis analyses the introduction and operation of the Australian citizenship test. The test, first proposed in April 2006, came into operation on 1 October 2007, after eighteen months of discussion in the parliament and in the public arena. The central argument of this thesis is that while there was some dissension in the parliamentary debates and committee hearings leading up to the introduction of the test, it focused primarily on the minor details of a piece of legislation that was always going to proceed. The Howard government had arrived at its decision to implement a citizenship test long before it sought public input and was committed to introducing the test prior to the 2007 election. No amount of evidence, it seemed, was going to derail or even delay the introduction of an ideologically-based policy, which was implemented despite ample testimony from academics and refugee advocates who warned that the test would be problematic. The thesis also argues that the Australian Labor Party, unwilling in the context of the times to oppose any demonstration of Australian ‘patriotism’, was a compliant ally in the smooth passage of the legislation through the parliament. What emerged from a superficial and rushed parliamentary process was what many commentators had predicted: a flawed and discriminatory test that adversely affects the more vulnerable individuals in society while privileging others. The thesis also examines the Australian government’s use of overseas citizenship testing regimes, particularly those of the United Kingdom, United States, Netherlands and Canada, to legitimise the implementation of its own test. The Australian government, however, had done little or no research into the criticisms of such regimes and was either ignorant or determinedly dismissive of the fact that all were highly contested and contentious. In addition, the government remained unswayed by the fact that little or no evidence exists, or is indeed ever likely to exist, that citizenship tests are effective in achieving their almost universally stated aims of improved social cohesion and migrant integration. i In the years since the Australian citizenship test was introduced, successive governments have failed to acknowledge that it is impossible to match a test of knowledge about Australian history, customs and government with the legislative requirement that prospective citizens demonstrate a ‘basic knowledge of the English language’. It is a point that was made repeatedly to the Howard government in the lead- up to the test’s introduction and a point that has been repeatedly reinforced throughout the life of the test, much of which has been overseen by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments. Such is the scale of the government’s ignorance of matters related to language learning and language testing that the 2008 review of the citizenship test, chaired by Richard Woolcott, succeeded only in magnifying the test’s already significant shortcomings, resulting in a revised test that is even more discriminatory than its predecessor. ii Acknowledgements Gratitude is due first to Professor Brian Costar of the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, for supervising the project with a cool head and hand. Brian’s knowledge, encouragement, calmness and good humour, along with what I have learned is his unwavering support for all of his students, was vital in keeping the project both relevant and on track. I also need to thank Denise Meredyth, who along with Brian convinced me to make the move to Swinburne. It was a leap of faith at the time and has proven to be an excellent one. Lorenzo Veracini, my associate supervisor, was an invaluable source of advice at crucial times. I would also like to thank everyone at the SISR from Julian Thomas down, and, in particular, my fellow PhD candidates, mostly for their humour, and certainly not for their model work habits. Thanks to Peter Browne, whose door is always open for advice on better writing, and who helped me to get some of my research and ideas on the citizenship test in front of more people than would otherwise have been the case. Julie Kimber deserves a special mention for her advice and support along the way, as well as for giving me tutoring jobs. Thanks, too, to Peter Love for giving me work in the politics department at Swinburne. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues at the Language Testing Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, my former home, for always inviting me to seminars and for keeping me in the language testing loop in general despite my defection to political science. Luke Harding from the University of Lancaster also deserves thanks for his sharp reading and always astute advice on how to improve my research and writing. I would also like to thank David Hudson for editing the final draft of the thesis and for putting the full stops, commas and references in order. Finally, and most importantly, for their support and love throughout, thanks to Sue, whose words of encouragement, while not always printable, were always inspiring, Finian (How many words do you have to write, Dad?) and Nell, who upon hearing my reply to her brother’s question, said ‘You should get a different job’. iii Preface The motivation for this thesis resulted from the author’s background in applied linguistics, and from experiences in researching and working on the development of high-stakes language tests for a range of clients, including organisations large and small, domestic and international, private and public. One of the main lessons learned when working in language testing is that it is deeply political, and, therefore, subject to politicisation. It is a lesson that is continually being reinforced. Indeed, as this thesis was being prepared for submission, the British government provided yet another example in support of the politics inherent in testing. When announcing the details of the third edition of its Life in the UK test – which, like Australia’s citizenship test, doubles as the marker for the required knowledge and language standards for citizenship – the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government used the opportunity to announce a reinterpretation of ‘Britishness’ by focusing the new test materials on so- called ‘British values’ and historical ‘achievements’. In doing so, it issued pointed statements designed to distance itself from the direction taken by the previous Blair and Brown governments. In April 2006, when the Australian government raised the possibility of employing a test in the context of immigration and citizenship, it was to be expected that the test would arouse interest, and indeed suspicion, not only among academics involved in political science, philosophy, multiculturalism, citizenship and history, but in language studies and, in particular, language testing. While the thesis produced here draws from an amalgam of disciplines, it must remain manageably narrow in its focus and is therefore concerned primarily with the Australian citizenship test as a test of language introduced by the Howard government in response to a perceived need. While the thesis is concerned primarily with the practice and politics of language testing, various aspects of citizenship theory, multiculturalism and/or migrant integration regimes are also discussed. This thesis, which is based on close textual reading of parliamentary documents, citizenship testing materials, media commentary, and statistical information obtained from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship via freedom of information iv legislation, is an analysis of the introduction and operation of the Australian citizenship test. It demonstrates that the test was initially an exercise in muscular patriotism from the Howard government that, in the context of the times, was never going to be opposed with any great conviction in parliament. The thesis also shows that successive governments have failed to grasp the complexities of matching the legislative requirement that prospective Australian citizens demonstrate a ‘basic knowledge of the English language’ with a test of knowledge of Australian history, customs and government. Despite concerted efforts to improve the test, the Australian government and the Australian public now have a flawed and discriminatory test that adversely affects the more vulnerable individuals in society while privileging others. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis by examining the conditions under which formal citizenship testing has proliferated in Western liberal democracies since the year 2000. The chapter also examines many of the arguments put forward by advocates and opponents of such tests, both in Europe, where formal citizenship testing is particularly widespread, and in Australia, which introduced its test in October 2007 and is the main topic of this thesis. Chapter 2 examines language testing as an academic discipline, and is based on the assumption and the reality that many citizenship tests are, in the main, language tests (as opposed to knowledge tests). It begins with definitions of language testing from within the field of applied linguistics before outlining some of the technical, practical and ethical concerns that testing practitioners and researchers express in relation to some of the more questionable uses, past and present, of language tests to identify and exclude, both in Australia and throughout the world. Chapter 3 is an analysis of how in 2006 the Howard government cultivated the supposed need among the Australian public for a new citizenship testing regime. Focusing on speeches made in the lead-up to the test’s introduction by Prime Minister John Howard, Deputy Prime Minister Peter Costello, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Andrew Robb, the chapter examines the political climate at the time with regard to attitudes to multiculturalism and the place of immigrants, both new and old, within Australian society.