Australian citizenship test will include Christian heritage

Sydney, Australia, Jul 25, 2007 / 08:06 am

The compulsory citizenship test that measures understanding of Australian values will include questions on the country’s Judeo-Christian background.

The Immigration Department's senior official, Andrew Metcalfe, has confirmed that would-be citizens should expect questions on Australia's post-1788 religious heritage, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.

The citizenship test will include 20 multiple-choice questions, including three that relate specifically to national values. While the test's pass rate is 60 percent, applicants must get all three "Australian values" questions right to pass. There is no limit to the number of times applicants can take the test.

Metcalfe recently told a hearing of the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that he thought Australian values and beliefs could be traced back to the “body of knowledge that derives from the Old Testament and upon which the Judeo-Christian background is based.”

In speaking in Parliament about the new law in May, the Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, noted: "British settlers of Australia brought with them the Anglo-Celtic principles and traditions of Christianity, the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment.”

Christian groups had lobbied the government to acknowledge this background in its primer on what defines Australia.