Let’s stop taking our citizenship for granted

Bec says:

05:33am | 19/01/10

I would speculate that the odds of someone being able to explain what the Westminster system is decreases proportionally with the number of racist facebook groups that one belongs to. That is to say, cracker of an idea.

Joan Fitzgerald says:

07:09am | 19/01/10

I think your heart is in the right place but I don’t think this is the answer. The courts have got to stop pussy footing around with these yobs and start giving out punishment to fit the crime,

iansand says:

07:50am | 19/01/10

I think uniforms and a bit of formation marching would add to the spectacle.

Randal says:

08:12am | 19/01/10

Whilst I appreciate you sentiment, the answer is education not pointless ceremonies where the youth’s in question would simply parrot a verse that they fail to understand, or worse, simply not take the test and then never actually engage in the democratic system, driving them further from the function of government. At least under the current system (however flawed) they are forced to engage at elections by at least considering a vote, regardless of their capacity to understand the system itself.

Essentially though it is the education that is failing our children and our public school system continues to go backwards and we need to review the entire approach, we need to review the curricular that is taught in schools to ensure that this is providing our children with the education that will provide them with the knowledge to enter adult hood, teachers need to be assessed, the poor one’s removed and the quality one’s provided with incentives to remain, quality candidates need to be encouraged into the profession and this is best achieved by increasing wages to make the profession more attractive to our brightest.

What we give our children in schools is the most important gift that society can offer, the gift of knowledge, and every child in this nation should have access to a quality education regardless of wealth or geographical location, and until our governments invest in the critical areas of education and not just building halls for their own promotion we will continue to fail our children.

T.Chong says:

08:47am | 19/01/10

“not been tested and shaped by real fights to achieve basic workers rights…,” strange statement.
The overwhelming majority of wage earners fought and defeated Howards ,Abbotts, Minchins,Bishops, Hockeys (and all the rest of the LNPs) WorkChoices.
BTW Chris , if Australian born citizens who are working “fail” your test for voting rights, would they have to pay tax?
After all tax without representation sounds very dictatorial, leads to revolutions, and the chopping block, metaphorically and literally for rulers who thought it was a good idea.

COF says:

08:55am | 19/01/10

Do people have the liberty to determine what “civics” are appropriate for them? When we are talking about the rule of law that is fair enough, but when you start defining further codes of conduct you are starting to encroach on liberty somewhat.
In many ways Chris, I agree with you - kids are not like they used to be these days, they were much better behaved back in my day. But that is most probably because they were more in line with my values back in those days.
Culture changes naturally, and we can either accept that or try to do what you are doing, which is stagnate it with a whole lot of useless “civics” lessons. Teach the child how to earn a living first, and then worry about them offending your sensibilities.
Like iansand, I can imagine a massive square with thousands of kids in green and gold uniforms doing perfectly orchestrated boot scooting. That would be a sight.

JenJam says:

09:35am | 19/01/10

What a bloody fantastic idea! I did not even know that those of us born into the Lucky Country (and yes, I still consider it to be) could go along and reaffirm our citizenship, I think that’s absolutely fabulous :D Thank you so much for that information, I am definitely going to be looking into that further.

David says:

09:36am | 19/01/10

Exactly what rights and liberties is your oath referring to? As an Australian citizen it is very difficult to discover what rights and liberties I am afforded. Especially since the Australian constitution is more focused on limiting and regulating the Commonwealth’s conduct with the states and not its citizens. Sure, the government can’t take my land without compensation and good reason, some vague affordation of not sponsoring a national religion (not that this stops anyone from funding nation-wide school Christian Chaplain programs) and some freedom of political speech - everything else is pretty much determined by individual states. We have no Bill of Rights or Human Rights Act at the Commonwealth level.

I think you may find the ability for our school children to learn, cite and understand simple English law that outlines the rights and liberties Australian citizens are afforded and responsible to uphold would go much further to changing the current climate of bogan nationalism in a more permanent manner than a contrived ceremony that staggers disturbingly close to nationalism not patriotism.

Rob M says:

09:47am | 19/01/10

I think people today have had enough of overbearig government. If you look at the number of laws being propagated onto people, they are increasing with time. They are frequently done by unelected officials, who remain faceless, and unchallengable.

Look at just a few areas:

1 Housing - the most expensive expense we will probably have in our lives. Demographia reports that government intervention (ie too many plannign laws) are responsible for the poor supply levels, and hence high prices.
2 Cars - Cars are comparatively much more highly priced in Australia. Why is it that a Commodore can be manufactured HERE, yet it can be exported to the US, with all the transport costs, and be sold there for less than here? Taxes, taxes, taxes. Cars are very important to Australian culture, when the public transport system is so poorly delievered.

3 Public transport - where do you want to start?

4 Civil liberties - there are many examples, but how about one. Faceless bureaucrats decided that due to a handful of idiots in Sydney harbour on jetskis, jetskis would be banned completely. If you applied the same logic(?), then there would be no cars on the roads, would there? Yet these government leeches put in place policies that cant be challeneged. Who are these people anyway?

5 Bob Carr - you must be kidding me. This is the same idiot, along with his sycophant sidekick Michael Egan, who introduced the disasterous vendor exit tax, that almost singlehandedly destroyed the NSW economy. Many managers of construction companies pulled up sticks and decided to invest interstate, and along went all the money with them. Once gone, it is near impossible to get them back. This, coupled with effectively NO planning for NSW (she’ll be right mate, NSW has always been the premier state, she runs herself maaaaate), and you have leaders with zero credibility.

Give me a break, please.

Is it any great surprise that people are disaffected? And the solution you propose is: more rules.

ImaWestie says:

10:03am | 19/01/10

So we live in a democracy. Through no fault of thier own, my children are born here, to parents who are native-born Australian citizens.

What if they don’t want to swear an oath of allegiance to this country (under the government of the day mind you!) on the Australia Day after their - wait for it - 18th birthday?

What are you going to do, deport them to Christmas Island?

Liz says:

11:14am | 19/01/10

Good point ImaWestie.Many young people don’t vote and don’t care, many more do.Maybe we shouldn’t allow anyone to stay after two years if they haven’t become citizens,that way there may be some hope of their kids havig nsome allegiance to the country.Once we’re a republic it may improve.Havinga monarchy is confusing when they have nothing to do with us and ‘grace’ us with a few days in decades.

Bob says:

11:22am | 19/01/10

Congratulations, Chris. Previously I have had you pegged as a conservative religious kook. You have now been upgraded to dangerous, conservative religious kook.

Jack says:

12:31pm | 19/01/10

I would be happy to make an oath to Australia, calls for more education are warranted. I don’t think many Australians at all know or appreciate that we are one of the oldest continuing democracies in the world or that we have the world’s oldes continuing culture in the Aboriginals. An oath to Australia, I believe would instill pride in young Australian’s and with that education would attach their pride to something. The way it is executed is probably the most difficult part, I could see something emerge when we become a republic.

Lord Grognard says:

12:56pm | 19/01/10

Why on earth should young people care about the state?  Its sole purpose is to shift blame over interest rates and hand out pork to people who don’t need it.  Will teenagers be pledging an oath to the baby bonus, or grocery watch?

Edward says:

01:14pm | 19/01/10

And what do you do if they fail the citizenship test? Revoke their citizenship? Deport them? At best it could only ever be an optional, non-binding, non-punitive measure. So what’s the point? People who care will learn, those who don’t, won’t.

Rafe says:

01:33pm | 19/01/10

Good in theory, in practice we’d just end up like Americans, which would make the situation even worse.

Nick says:

02:28pm | 19/01/10

I’ll happily take an oath of affirmation when the Government starts respecting the Democratic process. Tell me, who wants this internet filter?

Chase Stevens says:

02:37pm | 19/01/10

Yeah I’d rather not have patriotism ingrained into our national psyche. It’s bad enough that we have Little Pauline Hanson Southern Cross Wearing Bogans running around, we don’t need everyone pledging their undying loyalty to Australia, the country.

An oath to support, tolerate and accept all Australians, the people, (Regardless of whether they were born or have come from over seas) would be a better idea.

“no oath, no vote.” - This of course is a horrible idea, and flies in the face of what a democracy is.

I personally would never pledge my undying Loyalty to the State, should it do something I disagree with I’d like to be able to show (Peaceful, non-violent) dissent without being accused of being disloyal.

stephen says:

03:19pm | 19/01/10

...and thereby discourage forever dual-citizenship. (Some of these free-range nincompoops at the tennis probably suffer from the latter.)

Rob says:

03:45pm | 19/01/10

Davido: economic migrants and genuine migrants are one and the same.  They come to Australia to build a better life and you can’t do that without money.

The article is referring to the children of migrants, born in this country and the only way you can instill in them what it means to be Australian is through the education system.

Unless you are a migrant you have no idea what it means to move to another country and another culture. Parents don’t want their children to forget the old culture and it is ingrained in them in the home through language and stories of the ‘old country’, whereever that may be.

Just look around you. You will find oasis of Irish, Scottish, Italian, German, Chinese and many more cultures in social clubs, sports clubs and schools throughout the country. That’s the price you pay for multiculturalism.

If you expect the second generation of migrant children to embrace the Australian culture, then you do it in the schools through language and history while they are young enough to integrate the old with the new. It’s probably one of the best reasons to pump money into the public school system, and remind teachers that they don’t just have a job, they have a vocation.

asif says:

04:19pm | 19/01/10

stupid flag waver.