Vic: Citizenship test keeping refugees stateless: ethnic group

AAP General News (Australia)
04-29-2008
Vic: Citizenship test keeping refugees stateless: ethnic group

By Kellee Nolan

MELBOURNE, April 29 AAP - A fear of failing the Australia's citizenship test is stopping
refugees from applying to become citizens, a Victorian ethnic group says.

Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria chairman Sam Afra today said refugees, who often
had little or no education, feared failing the test and this stopped them from seeking
citizenship.

"There are a lot of people we have spoken with who were afraid of going to the test,"

Mr Afra said.

"It's created a barrier with these types of people. They've been traumatised, never
had education or been to school and the fear of failure is a big issue.

"The people feel `why are they testing us, if they didn't want us, why did they bring us here?'"

His comments came after the federal government yesterday announced it would review
the citizenship test, as results show refugee groups had higher fail rates than others
doing the test.

The government also said there were fears the level of English used in the test had
"crept up" to native speaker level, rather than the basic level supposed to be used.

Mr Afra said in refugee groups such as Iraqi and Sudanese, the fail rates were up to
20 per cent, compared to 5 per cent fail rates overall.

He said it was unrealistic to expect one test could fit all.

"If you lived in a refugee camp for the last five or six years, you didn't have school,
you went through trauma, all these wars, problems, how do you expect people who come from
these areas, who have never had English or didn't have education in general, to come straight
away and ... be able to get up that to that level?" he said.

Since the test was introduced last October, 1,286 people failed it at their first attempt.

Mr Afra said the refugees who failed their first attempt would probably never go for
the test again and so never become citizens.

He welcomed the government's review of the test and said there should be concessions
for refugee groups who came from "less fortunate" backgrounds, or these people would remain
stateless.

"We are not saying don't do the test because a lot of people come from better educated,
calmer areas, no wars," he said.

"But if you take the big extremes, there is a big gap."

AAP kn/gfr/maur/bwl

KEYWORD: CITIZENSHIP VIC

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