Highlights
- New citizenship test to be rolled out in November
- New questions about Australian values to be included in the new test
- New citizenship test resource booklet will be made available soon
Speaking with multicultural media on Friday, the Minister for Citizenship said his department will soon be updating the current Australian values statement - something that is signed by temporary and permanent migrants as well as citizenship applicants.
Last week, Minister Tudge in his address at the National Press Club flagged changes to the Australian citizenship test and said there will be a stronger focus on ‘Australian values’ in the new test.
Today, the Minister confirmed the new test will be rolled out in November and ‘new book’ for the test will be prepared.
The new test will include questions based on the updated Australian Values statement.
In response to the question by SBS Hindi about what the new changes will look like, the Minister said the changes won't be radical.
“I think you will see them as quite sensible and [we are] just making sure we are updating the language which is clear language, understood and very consistent with our modern democratic system.
“You will see this in due course that they won't be radical changes. It will be a very similar sentiment, just some slight language change. [It will] make the language clearer, more concise, more easily understood.
“It is a very important statement that we ask everybody who comes into the country to sign and we just want to emphasise this even more – that there are these core values that unite us, that is what I said in Sydney at the Press Club, that ultimately, the key thing that unites us all is our liberal democratic values. We have to defend those, we have to constantly educate people about them and we want people to deeply understand them.
“So it's just the eloquence of that objective, what the values statement [will be],” Minister Tudge said.
Will there be an English language test component to the citizenship test?
In his speech at the National Press Club, Minister Tudge also announced the government was overhauling its English language program for migrants to learn and improve their English language skills by increasing the number of available hours through the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP).
“From today, migrants in Australia will be able to access more than the current standard 510 hours available through the AMEP,” Mr Tudge announced.
“These changes will mean that more migrants will be able to access free English tuition, for longer, and until they reach a higher level of proficiency.”
The announcement raised questions among the migrant community if English language test was being mulled as part of citizenship processing.
But Minister Tudge on Friday ruled it out and confirmed there were no plans to include English language test in the citizenship test.
“The test itself is in English and the simple answer to that is, no. There is no plan to include an English language test,” he said.
As of July 31, 2020, 150,171* applicants were still awaiting the outcome of their citizenship application.
The current average waiting period has shot up to 25 months from date of application to ceremony due to restrictions imposed by COVID-19 pandemic.
