Major reform of surveillance laws proposed by review

AAP/Mick Tsikas

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

A new single legislative framework governing electronic surveillance activities in Australia has been recommended by a sweeping review of the nation’s intelligence laws.

The review found the existing laws governing this area are complex and outdated by changing technology.

The new act – not designed to alter powers – would cover telecommunication interception, covert access to stored communications, computers and telecommunications data, and the use of optical, listening and tracking devices.

The comprehensive review, led by Dennis Richardson, who previously headed the departments of defence and foreign affairs, as well as ASIO, and served as ambassador to the United States.

The Richardson report runs to 1600 pages and 203 recommendations, 13 of them classified. A declassified version was released by Attorney-General Christian Porter on Friday.

In general, the review – the most extensive since the inquiries of the 1970s and 1980s – gave a tick to the principles underpinning current security and intelligence legislation. But it found it in need of rationalisation and modernisation. Porter characterised the reforms as evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

The review did have sharp observations about some agencies, including noting “an immature understanding of the foundational principles governing the intelligence agencies”.

“This lack of understanding led some agencies to suggest that legitimate safeguards should be removed to, for example, facilitate better information sharing or relieve administrative burdens,” the report said.

“The term ‘administrative burden’ tends to be thrown around too loosely by the [national intelligence community] agencies. Government should be wary of, and properly test, such claims.”

The government has accepted almost all the recommendations, including for the new surveillance legislation. Some are accepted in principle or in part. Only four recommendations – none of them classified – have been rejected.

Richardson’s report warns that reforming the surveillance legislation will take years. “This is due to the issues at play, the multitude of interested stakeholders at the Commonwealth, state and territory level and the controversy which attaches to what are, arguably, the most intrusive powers of the state”.

Porter said other changes the government would pursue included

• strengthening ministerial control over ASIO’s offshore activities

• streamlining the provisions for issuing emergency warrants

• ensuring oversight was better embedded when intelligence legislation is created

• establishing an independent panel to provide technical expertise and assistance to the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS).

One of the rejected recommendations would have enabled the parliamentary committee on security and intelligence to be able to request the IGIS to inquire into “the legality and propriety of particular operational activities”.

In its rejection, the government said: “It remains appropriate for ministers to primarily oversee operations and be accountable to parliament”.

The review recommends widening ASIO’s power to collect foreign intelligence. Foreign intelligence means intelligence about the capabilities, intentions or activities of people or organisations outside Australia.

An example would be a dual citizen working in Australia on behalf of a foreign government. The amendment would allow the attorney-general to issue a warrant in relation to the person for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence, while the person is in Australia.

At present “ASIO may obtain warrants authorising it to collect foreign intelligence inside Australia. However a warrant cannot be issued for the purpose of collecting information concerning an Australian citizen or permanent resident. This applies while they are in Australia.

“This prohibition should not apply where an Australian citizen or permanent resident is acting for, or on behalf of, a foreign power.”

The review recommended changes to prevent the delegation of the attorney-general’s powers in relation to ASIO warrants and authorisations.

It also found “room to improve” how agencies manage risks to foreign relations.

“There is a simple need for agencies to consult and inform [the foreign affairs department] more readily than what they are doing at present when they are engaging in risky offshore activity.”

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The proposed National Integrity Commission is a watered-down version of a federal ICAC

Yee-Fui Ng, Monash University

The federal government has announced it will establish a Commonwealth Integrity Commission. This new commission will be the peak body to detect and investigate corrupt and criminal behaviour by Commonwealth employees.

This announcement followed mounting pressure from Labor, the Greens and independent MPs, who argued that a national integrity commission was vital to rebuild trust in Australian democracy.

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Read more:
Government agrees to national anti-corruption body – with strict limits

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On November 26, independent MP Cathy McGowan introduced a private member’s bill for the introduction of a national integrity commission, further increasing the pressure on the government.

All Australian states have anti-corruption commissions, and the federal government is lagging behind in this area.

Why do we need this commission?

The case for a national integrity commission is strong.

Australia has fallen steadily in Transparency International’s global corruption index, from eighth place in 2012 to 13th this year.

More alarming is the fact that one in 20 Australian public servants said in a survey last year that they had seen a colleague acting in a corrupt manner. This figure has doubled in the past three years.

Moreover, a Griffith University survey has found strong public support for a national integrity commission, with two-thirds (67%) of Australians in favour of one.

What will the commission look like?

The commission will be an independent statutory agency led by a commissioner and two deputy commissioners. It will have two divisions: a public sector division and a law enforcement integrity division.

The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity will be reconstituted as the law enforcement integrity division with an expanded jurisdiction. But its jurisdiction will be limited to certain departments and agencies dealing with law enforcement and those that have coercive powers, such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

The public sector integrity division has a broader coverage. It includes public service departments and agencies, parliamentary departments, statutory agencies, Commonwealth companies and corporations, Commonwealth service providers and any subcontractors they engage, as well as parliamentarians and their staff.

Is the proposed model adequate?

The proposed model is a watered-down version of an anti-corruption commission, with limited powers.

The Commonwealth Integrity Commission will have the power to conduct public hearings only through its law enforcement division.

Conversely, the public sector integrity division with the broader remit will not have the power to make public findings of corruption. Instead, it will be tasked with investigating and referring potential criminal conduct to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

This is a far more limited jurisdiction compared to its equivalent state counterparts, such as the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), which has the ability to conduct public hearings and make findings of corruption in the public sector.

Although it is envisaged that the Commonwealth Integrity Commission will play a role in preventing corruption, this model lacks a dedicated corruption prevention division. This is a pro-integrity function that monitors major corruption risks across all sectors.

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Read more:
Australians think our politicians are corrupt, but where is the evidence?

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There are also other activities that do not amount to corruption, but nevertheless show an undue influence on government. Ideally, a federal anti-corruption commission should sit alongside a broader package of reforms that impose stronger rules on lobbying and political donations, as well as a code of conduct for MPs, policed by an independent commissioner.

This would form an interlocking political integrity system that would keep politicians honest.

The government is taking submissions on the proposed model for the Commonwealth Integrity Commission.

It is commendable that the government is finally taking action on anti-corruption measures. However, it is important to get the model right. The proposed model is an improvement on the status quo of patchwork regulation, but does not go far enough to properly investigate corruption in federal government.

Yee-Fui Ng, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How a proposed new bill would make it easier to strip Australian citizenship

The proposed amendments also remove protections against rendering a person stateless.
Shutterstock

Rayner Thwaites, University of Sydney

Last month, the federal government introduced a bill into parliament that, if passed, will make it easier to strip an Australian of citizenship by:

• making lesser offences a trigger for deprivation
• dropping the requirement that, to trigger deprivation, a conviction or convictions result in a term of imprisonment of at least six years
• weakening and complicating protections against the creation of statelessness.

These amendments are directly contrary to bipartisan recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, contained in its report of September 2015. Those recommendations were followed when parliament inserted the current citizenship stripping provisions into the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 in December 2015.

Expanding the scope, and lowering the threshold, for deprivation

The proposed amendments address what an earlier Conversation piece referred to as “conviction-based citizenship deprivation”, one of three mechanisms for deprivation introduced into the Act in 2015.

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Read more:
The latest citizenship-stripping plan risks statelessness, indefinite detention and constitutional challenge

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Of the offences currently listed as potential triggers for deprivation, some are directed at terrorism and some are without that connection (for example sabotage and espionage). All carry a maximum sentence of ten years or more: for example treason (life); espionage (life); directing the activities of a terrorist organisation (ten years) or; membership of a terrorist organisation (ten years).

This enacts the view of the parliamentary committee that ten years served to mark out the offences sufficiently serious to warrant deprivation. Further, the parliamentary committee determined that even when convicted of such an offence:

there will still be degrees of seriousness of conduct and degrees to which conduct demonstrates a repudiation of allegiance to Australia.

The committee also insisted on an additional requirement that the relevant convictions result in a sentence of at least six years imprisonment in total.

These two important existing limitations on the deprivation power are breached by the government’s proposed amendments:

• the offence of “associating with terrorist organisations” has been added to the terrorism offences that trigger deprivation. This is an offence with a maximum sentence of only three years, radically under the ten years previously required

• the requirement that conviction carry a sentence of at least six years has been dropped in relation to all the nominated offences designated “terrorism offences”. However, it remains in place for “other offences” such as espionage, sabotage and foreign incursions

• the new lower standards apply retrospectively to convictions from 12 December 2005 in relation to the relevant terrorism offences.

Weakening, and complicating, protections against statelessness

The proposed amendments also weaken the safeguards on the creation of statelessness. Currently, a person can only be deprived of citizenship under the provision if he or she “is a national or citizen of a country other than Australia” at the time when the minister strips him or her of citizenship. This is to ensure that the minister does not render the person stateless.

The proposed amendments replace that test, instead providing that the minister can deprive a person of Australian citizenship if:

the Minister is satisfied that the person would not […] become a person who is not a national or citizen of any country.

The proposed formulation substitutes the minister’s satisfaction for the facts of the matter. But under Australia’s international law commitments on statelessness, the minister’s opinion is irrelevant. What matters is whether the person is a citizen under the domestic law of the foreign country concerned.

If the minister’s view that a person is a citizen of country X diverges from the view held by the authorities in country X, there is a practical impasse. If country X determines the person is not one of its citizens and accordingly refuses to admit them, and Australia denies the newly minted non-citizen a visa, deprivation may result in the former Australian citizen being held in indefinite immigration detention.

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Read more:
New laws make loss of citizenship a counter-terrorism tool

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And the nature of the inquiry has changed. In context, the word “become” muddies the time at which the person must have another nationality. It invites the possibility that deprivation will render a person stateless, but that, over some unspecified period, they will become the national of another country.

These comments on statelessness should be understood in the context of Australia’s opaque process for determining a person’s foreign nationality or nationalities. In the United Kingdom, for example, a person has a statutory right to appeal a ministerial decision to strip them of citizenship.

In the exercise of these appeal rights, the most frequently litigated issue is whether a person has another nationality (the Pham case is a prominent example). Expert witnesses are called and cross-examined on difficult questions of foreign nationality law.

None of this institutional infrastructure is provided for under the Australian legislation. How these issues are resolved needs attention. If parliament has learned anything in the past few years, it should be that determining whether a person has a foreign citizenship is no simple matter.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has announced an inquiry into the Bill. Submissions close on January 11, 2019.

Rayner Thwaites, Senior Lecturer, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How the government can pay for its proposed company tax cuts

The government is still attempting to lower the corporate tax rate to compete globally.
Ben Rushton/AAP

David Ingles, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and Miranda Stewart, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

There are ways the government can pay for a cut in the company tax rate. In a recent working paper, we worked with researcher Chris Murphy to model three different options: reforming Australia’s system of giving shareholders tax credits, allowing less tax deductions on interest for companies, and introducing a tax on the super-profits of banks and miners.

After taking economic growth into account, the budget cost of the tax cut could be net A$5 billion a year.

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Read more:
Race to the bottom on company tax cuts won’t stop tax avoidance

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In the US, a company tax cut to 21% continues an inexorable global trend of cutting rates, making international tax competition even more pressing. As our working paper noted, Australia’s rate is now higher than most other countries, making tax avoidance even more attractive and deterring inbound foreign investment.

A cut in the Australian company tax rate to 25 or even 20% is important because it will attract foreign investment, boosting wages and the economy in Australia.

Remove dividend imputation

Australia has an unusual system of integrated company and personal tax, called dividend imputation. It has been in place since the 1980s.

Australian shareholders receive franking (imputation) credits for company tax. If shareholders are on a personal tax rate less than 30%, they receive a refund.

The company tax cut could be financed by removing dividend imputation. Our modelling indicates a company tax rate of 20% would mean the government breaks even, while halving imputation could finance a 25% rate.

It would be simpler to abolish dividend imputation and replace it with a discount for dividend tax, at the personal level.

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Read more:
Qantas and other big Australian businesses are investing regardless of tax cuts

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Dividend imputation only makes sense if we assume Australia is a closed economy with no foreign investors. In reality, Australia depends on inflows of foreign investment. About one-third of the corporate sector is foreign owned.

The likely source of additional finance, especially for large Australian businesses, is a foreigner who does not benefit from dividend imputation. So the company tax pushes up the cost of capital and domestic investors benefit from franking credits for a tax they don’t actually bear.

But the politics of making a change to the system are difficult, because domestic investors, especially retirees on low incomes and superannuation funds would lose out. But this approach could benefit workers, jobs and Australian businesses.

Broaden company tax by removing interest deductibility for companies

Another approach is to remove or limit deductibility of interest for companies. This can raise the same revenue at a lower rate, by allowing less deductions. Excessive interest deductions are used by multinationals to reduce their Australian tax bill, as shown in the recent Chevron case.

This would be like imposing a withholding tax on interest paid offshore. We explore a comprehensive business income tax on all corporate income. Modelling shows that this tax would finance the rate cut to 25%.

The comprehensive business income tax raises some difficult issues for taxing banks. This is because their profit is interest income less interest expense.

But there are numerous policies to restrict interest deductions already in place, here and around the world. These restrictions could be expanded. For example the thin capitalisation rules limit of the amount of loans a business can have relative to equity.

We still need anti-abuse rules because businesses can use other methods to minimise tax, as canvassed by the OECD in its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project, including transfer pricing, and deductible payments offshore for intellectual property fees.

A rent tax or allowance for equity

A third option for a company tax cut is to change to a tax with a lower effective marginal rate. This means that the return on a new investment is taxed less heavily than under a company income tax.

We could introduce an allowance for corporate equity, or corporate capital, which provides a deduction for the “normal” or risk-free return for capital investment. This is also called an economic rent tax because it only taxes the above-normal profit.

Modelling shows that the allowance for corporate capital encourages new investment, which helps economic growth, but there is a large budget cost. The extra deduction reduces the overall tax take and so a higher rate is needed for the same revenue.

It is unlikely Australia would want to maintain or increase our company tax rate, as this directly contrary to the global trend and can lead to even more tax planning by businesses.

For Australia, a supplementary rent tax aimed at the financial and mining sectors – where above-normal returns are known to occur – could be combined with a lower company income tax. Modelling this option for the finance sector shows a large welfare gain and sufficient revenue to fund the rate cut to 25%.

The government has a lot of choices

We show that the government has many options available to finance the needed corporate rate cut and improve efficiency of the company tax.

Policymakers could mix and match these options. Dividend imputation could be replaced with a discount and combined with a comprehensive business income tax. Limits on interest deductibility could be combined with a part allowance for corporate capital.

Replacing dividend imputation with a dividend discount at the personal level could be the best initial step. Other options for major reform of Australia’s company tax need to remain on the table, as company taxes drop to a new low and systems are reformed around the world.

David Ingles, Senior Research Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and Miranda Stewart, Professor and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Explainer: how do Australia’s proposed citizenship laws compare internationally?

Sangeetha Pillai, UNSW

Debate will resume in parliament this week over the government’s proposed changes to Australian citizenship laws. Among the reforms is a requirement for migrants to be permanent residents of Australia for four years before applying for citizenship – an increase from the current requirement of one year.

In a doorstop interview in June, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said such an increase:

… brings us short of where Germany is at eight years for example, in Canada it’s something like four or five years, the United Kingdom four years as well.

It’s not entirely clear whether he was referring to the time a prospective citizen must have spent as a permanent resident in those countries before being eligible to apply for citizenship, or the total time they must have lived in the country before being eligible. But how would the proposed changes to Australian citizenship compare on both measures?

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Further reading: Explainer: the proposed changes to Australian citizenship

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Permanent residency and citizenship requirements in Australia

The changes would affect different groups of migrants in different ways. This is because there are big variations in the time it takes for a person to be eligible to apply for permanent residency after they come to Australia.

The quickest path to permanent residency does not require a person to have lived in Australia at all. For example, foreign workers who work in jobs listed on Australia’s skilled occupations list may apply for permanent residency from outside Australia, where they are invited to do so by the government, or nominated by an approved Australian employer.

But most skilled migrants apply from within Australia, and they face longer wait times. For example, a person on a temporary skilled 457 visa can apply for permanent residency after working in Australia for two years, provided their employer wants to offer them a permanent position.

Refugees who arrived in Australia by boat have the longest wait. They must first apply for a temporary Safe Haven Enterprise Visa, which allows them to apply for permanent residency after three-and-a-half years working or studying in regional Australia, provided they can also meet the eligibility criteria for a permanent visa.

So, the minimum time that migrants in these three groups must live in Australia before becoming eligible for permanent residency ranges from zero to three-and-a-half years.

Despite this, under current law, the minimum time in which different groups of migrants can become eligible for citizenship is actually pretty even: four years for skilled workers in either category, and four-and-a-half years for refugees who arrive by boat. This is because the current requirements take into account the time a person has spent living in Australia before becoming a permanent resident.

Under the proposed changes, things will get much more uneven, because the time a person spends in Australia before gaining permanent residency will no longer count. Migrants that face longer roads to permanent residency will be hardest hit by the changes. For example:

• Things stay the same for skilled workers with immediate access to permanent residency. They will need to live in Australia for at least four years before they can apply for citizenship.

• Skilled workers who start out on 457 visas will need to live in Australia for at least six years before they can apply for citizenship. That’s two years longer than under current law.

• Refugees who arrive by boat will need to live in Australia for at least seven-and-a-half years. That’s three years longer than under current law.

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Further reading: Minister to get unprecedented power if Australia’s new citizenship bill is passed

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Requirements in Germany

Migrants who live in Germany are usually entitled to permanent residency (known as a “settlement permit”) after five years, provided they can meet particular conditions.

However, it is possible for some people to become permanent residents in less than five years. For instance, spouses of German citizens can acquire permanent residency in three years. Reduced periods also apply for graduates of German universities.

A person must be a permanent resident to become a citizen. But there’s no legal requirement to have held permanent residency for any particular length of time.

To be eligible for citizenship, migrants must generally have lived in Germany for at least eight years. But this rule is relaxed in certain circumstances:

• People who complete a German integration course can apply for citizenship after seven years – or six years if they can prove a higher level of integration.

• Families can apply together – even if only one parent has met the eight-year residence requirement.

• Refugees can apply after six years.

• Spouses of German citizens can do so after three years.

German authorities also have the discretion to grant citizenship to a person who has lived in Germany for less than eight years but who doesn’t fall into any of these categories.

Requirements in Canada

In Canada, migrants applying for citizenship must have been present in Canada as a permanent resident for 1,460 days – or four years – in the six years leading up to their citizenship application. But this is expected to change in coming months.

Canada recently passed a law reducing the permanent residency requirements for prospective citizens. When the law comes into effect, people will need to have been present in Canada as a permanent resident for 1,095 days – or three years – in the five years before their application.

Canada’s requirements are similar to the proposed Australian requirements in that a migrant must be a permanent resident for several years before they can apply for citizenship. But it is often possible to apply for permanent residence from outside Canada, or after relatively short residency periods.

For example, experienced skilled foreign workers, family members of Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and refugees can all apply for immediate permanent residence. Temporary foreign workers can apply for permanent residence after gaining one year of work experience in Canada.

Requirements in the UK

Prospective UK citizens must generally have lived in the UK for at least five years, and been a permanent resident for at least one year leading up to their application.

It usually takes five years for a migrant to become eligible for permanent residency. This means it’s generally necessary for an applicant to live in the UK for six years before they can apply for citizenship.

Some migrants can gain permanent residency in less than five years. For example, some entrepreneurs and investors become eligible after two-to-three years. People who take advantage of these shorter routes to permanent residency can apply for citizenship after five years.

The road to citizenship is much shorter for spouses of UK citizens, who can apply after living in the UK for three years, provided they have acquired permanent residency at any point during this time. Permanent residency timeframes are also relaxed: spouses of UK citizens or permanent residents need only have lived in the UK for two years.

How would Australia compare?

So, the proposed Australian timeframe of four years’ permanent residency before citizenship is:

• longer than Germany’s requirements, which do not specify a minimum permanent residency period;

• the same as Canada’s current requirement of four years, but longer than Canada’s incoming requirement of three years; and

• longer than the UK’s requirement of one year.

In terms of the total time it would take before being eligible to apply for citizenship in Australia (ranging from four years to up to seven-and-a-half years for refugees who arrive by boat), the proposed changes would be:

• similar to the German period of three to eight years;

• generally longer than both the current Canadian period of four to five years and the new period of three to four years; and

• similar to the UK period of three to six years.

Whether or not a prospective citizen would face a longer wait in Australia compared to Germany, Canada or the UK comes down to their individual circumstances.

For example, some skilled migrants who can gain Australian permanent residency immediately and citizenship in four years may face longer waits in Germany and the UK. But that’s untrue for other individuals and groups, such as refugees, who would face a longer wait in Australia.

Sangeetha Pillai, Senior Research Associate, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law School, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Could you pass the proposed English test for Australian citizenship?

English language tests will be used to decide Australian citizenship.
from shutterstock.com

Misty Adoniou, University of Canberra

The Australian government is proposing tough new English language competency requirements for those seeking Australian citizenship.

Alongside a test of Australian values, and proof of your integration into Australian society, you’ll need to prove you can read, write and speak English at a competent level

We’ve been here before

Question: What do these two excerpts have in common – besides their clumsy sentence structure?

1. If the land is ploughed when wet the furrows may, and in all probability will, wear a more finished appearance, and will be more pleasant to the eye, but land so ploughed will be more inclined to become set or baked, and when in this state will not produce a maximum yield.

2. By carefully preplanning projects, implementing pollution control measures, monitoring the effects of mining and rehabilitating mined areas, the coal industry minimises the impact on the neighbouring community, the immediate environment and long-term land capability.

Answer: They are both language tests used to decide Australian citizenship.

The first is a 50 word dictation test that was key to the White Australia Policy. It was used to keep non-Europeans out of Australia.

Even if you passed the test in English, the immigration officer had the right to test you again in another European language. It was used from 1901 until 1958.

The second one is 50 words from a 1000 word reading comprehension exam with 40 questions that you must complete in 60 minutes.

This test is key to Australia’s proposed new Citizenship test. You must also write two essays, do a 30 minute listening test and a 15 minute speaking exam. If it passes through Parliament this week, it will be used from 2017.

Aspiring Australian citizens will need to score a Band 6 on the general stream of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test, the same score as those seeking entry to Australia’s top university.

So, could you pass the test?

The reading test

You have 60 minutes to read at least four texts taken from magazines, newspapers or training manuals, and answer 40 comprehension questions. Your short answer responses are also assessed for grammar and spelling. Here is an excerpt from a piece about bee behaviour.

The direction of the sun is represented by the top of the hive wall. If she runs straight up, this means that the feeding place is in the same direction as the sun. However, if, for example, the feeding place is 40 degrees to the left of the sun, then the dancer would run 40 degrees to the left of the vertical line.

Try the test for yourself.

The writing test

You have 60 minutes to complete two writing tasks. For example,

Write a letter to the accommodation officer complaining about your room mate and asking for a new room.

You are marked on the length of your response, its cohesion, vocabulary and grammar.

To give you something to gauge yourself by, this one didn’t achieve the required score of 6. It begins,

Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with my room-mate. As you know we share one room, I can not study in the room at all any more if I still stay there.

As Senator Penny Wong observed about the test,

“Frankly if English grammar is the test there might be a few members of parliament who might struggle.”

Currently our national school test results from NAPLAN show that 15.3% of Year 9 students are below benchmark in writing. This means they would not achieve a Band 6 on the IELTS test.

A fair test?

I prepared students for the IELTS test when I lived and taught in Greece. They needed a score of 6 to get into Foundation courses in British universities. It wasn’t an easy test and sometimes it took them more than one try to succeed.

My students were middle class, living comfortably at home with mum and dad. They had been to school all their lives and were highly competent readers and writers in their mother tongue of Greek.

They had been learning English at school since Grade 4, and doing private English tuition after school for even longer. Essentially they had been preparing for their IELTS test for at least 8 years.

They were not 40-year-old women whose lives as refugees has meant they have never been to school, and cannot read and write in their mother tongue.

Neither were they adjusting to a new culture, trying to find affordable accommodation and a job while simultaneously dealing with post-traumatic stress and the challenge of settling their teenage children into a brand new world.

Learning a language takes time

Even if we conclude that tests about dancing bees and recalcitrant room-mates are fit for the purpose of assessing worthiness for citizenship – and that is surely very debatable – we must acknowledge that it is going to take a very long time for our most vulnerable aspiring citizens to reach a proficiency that will enable them to pass the test.

Currently we offer them 510 hours of free English tuition. That is at least 5 years short of what the research says is required to reach English language competency.

Testing English doesn’t teach it

The three ingredients of successful language learning are motivation, opportunity and good tuition.

The Australian government must address all three if it wishes to increase the English language proficiency of its citizens.

An English language test may appear to be a compelling motivation to learn the language, but without the opportunity to learn and excellent tuition over time, the test is not a motivation. It is an unfair barrier to anyone for whom English is not their mother tongue.

And then this new policy starts to look and feel like Australia’s old White Australia Policy.

Misty Adoniou, Associate Professor in Language, Literacy and TESL, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Proposed tanker route across volatile Nicaragua could rival Panama Canal’s shipping monopoly

Australian Politics: 24 July 2013

The latest asylum seeker ‘solution’ proposed in Australia continues to gather a lot of attention in Australian politics. The links below are to articles that look at the policy from varying prospectives. The first article is an in-depth look at the situation in Papua New Guinea.

For more visit:
– http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/for-those-whove-come-across-the-seas-a-short-trip-to-png/662/
– http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/asylum-seeker-boat-sinks-off-indonesia/story-fn9hm1gu-1226684079708

As the Kevin Rudd experiment continues to be a winner for Labor, the Liberals are beginning to face the leadership change question themselves, with a possible shift from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull becoming popular among voters.

For more visit:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/city-east/voters-turning-to-turnbull-over-abbott-but-liberals-say-theres-no-chance-of-leadership-challenge/story-fngr8h22-1226683907946

Australian Politics: 11 July 2013

Labelled a stunt by many and ignored by Tony Abbott, a proposed political debate between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott didn’t happen at the National Press Club today. The debate was proposed by Kevin Rudd, but Tony Abbott wanted nothing to do with it. So instead of a debate, Kevin Rudd delivered an address on the economy. The link below is to an article that reports on the address.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/kevin-rudd-seven-point-plan

Meanwhile, in Queensland the great politicians pay rise debate has continued with the premier now taking ‘action.’

Then of course there was more Kevin Rudd bashing by all and sundry. This time over a Twitter photo. My take – what’s wrong with Kevin Rudd being human and normal. I think the whiners need to take a long cold shower.

Australian Politics: 9 July 2013

A lot has changed over the last couple of weeks in Australian politics. Pressure on the coalition is beginning to increase as the election slowly draws closer and as the government under Kevin Rudd claws back much lost ground and re-election begins to look a more and more viable prospect. ALP reform is increasingly a vote winner for the government and the link below is to an article that takes a closer look at the proposed reforms.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/08/kevin-rudd-bolster-labor-pms

After applying months of intense scrutiny to Peter Slipper and Craig Thompson concerning various alleged rorts, Opposition leader Tony Abbott is now facing his own travel rorts scandal for wrongly claimed travel expenses. Will Tony Abbott now do what he expected to be done concerning those he criticised opposite him? Unlikely I’d say. The link below is to an article reporting on the matter.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/09/tony-abbott-refusal-travel-expenses

Also of current interest is the climate change denial policies of the Coalition under Tony Abbott and the link below is to an article that takes a look at that.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/southern-crossroads/2013/jul/08/tony-abbott-climate-policy-australia

On a lighter note (perhaps), the link below is to an article that takes a look at the ‘tie’ in Australian politics.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/09/tie-colour-kevin-rudd

Then there is the size of the senate election voting ballot form…