I’ve long banged on about how infuriating it is for our government (and opposition) to try and force “Australian values” on prospective immigrants. I’ve also agreed before with John Roskam and today I’m agreeing with him again after another excellent piece in The Age.

THE problem with the Howard Government’s new citizenship test is not the requirement that applicants must learn English… Of more concern is the obligation on candidates for citizenship to uphold “Australian values”. The problem is that these are impossible to define. No one, ever, should be required to commit to something as subjective and vague as “Australian values”. The only obligation that is reasonable to impose on new citizens is the responsibility to obey the law — nothing more and nothing less.

While we like to believe that “a fair go” and “mateship” are part of our national culture — and perhaps they are — these sentiments can’t be turned into a set of administrative rules. Yet this is exactly what the Government is suggesting should happen.

A fortnight ago, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Kevin Andrews spelt out some of what he believed were part of the country’s values. They included freedom of speech, freedom of religion, support for parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, equality of men and women, tolerance, compassion for those in need, and peacefulness.

The first thing to notice is that there’s nothing uniquely Australian about many of these values. They exist in any liberal democratic country.

But insisting that immigrants hold unmeasurable and undefinable “values” before they enter the country, that many natives fail to hold themselves, makes for an awesome dog whistle to those Australians who hold other values: xenophobia and racism.