The Federal Opposition has criticised the Government's decision to axe the general knowledge quiz about Australia in its overhaul of the citizenship test.
The Government has dumped questions about famous Australian sporting identities like Sir Don Bradman from the test, after a review conducted by a panel of experts.
The Government today revealed the focus of the citizenship test will move away from general knowledge about Australia's popular culture and toward the Pledge of Commitment new Australians make when becoming citizens.
And the standard of English will be lowered for "disadvantaged" applicants such as refugees, who will sit a special course.
Ethnic and refugee advocacy groups have welcomed the changes, saying the existing test is discriminatory.
But Opposition parliamentary secretary for citizenship Concetta Fierravanti-Wells says she believes the general knowledge quiz is important.
"Those questions in the end form an important part of our history and our culture," she said.
"They are an important component for the understanding that new citizens have of the Australian way of life."
She says she is yet to see the questions in order to gauge the level of English required.
"English is very important, I mean when my parents came to this country it was a different set of circumstances," she said.
"But English today, particularly in Australia's modern economy, is very important."
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says he is pleased the Government is retaining the citizenship test, despite the planned changes.
Mr Turnbull says it was inevitable the Government would change the test.
"We are pleased that the Government is keeping the citizenship test, that it's keeping a test that we proposed, we set up, we established, when we were in Government," he said.
"As far Don Bradman is concerned, I'd simply say that it is a very brave selector that drops Don Bradman."
Original article
By removing the cultural component from the citizenship test, the Rudd Government is undermining the meaning of citizenship.
Members of a particular national community are united by a common culture, language, heritage and history. It is immensely difficult to see how citizenship can still serve as a bond between the members of a national community if it has been stripped of all meaningful content and reduced to nothing more than a vertical relationship between individuals and a state bureaucratic apparatus.
Granted, the Don Bradman question was silly. In truth, the test should have focused more on our country’s broader cultural and social history and heritage, including Australia’s British and, more broadly, Western civilisational heritage. But stripping all cultural content from the new citizenship test essentially makes Australian citizenship substanceless and, therefore, meaningless.
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