Australia govt vows to pursue citizenship crackdown

REX TILLERSON, U.S. Secretary of State SYDNEY: Australia’s conservative government vowed yesterday to pursue efforts to tighten the country’s citizenship requirements after Parliament refused to approve the crackdown.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull proposed the tougher rules in April, adding stringent English-language tests and a quadrupling of the residency requirement for citizenship applicants from one to four years.

The move came amid growing populist pressure in Australia and a resurgence of the anti-immigration One Nation party.

But the opposition Labor Party and other critics blocked the legislation in the upper house Senate where a deadline for adoption passed on Wednesday.

Criticism of the bill focused on the requirement that new citizens would need to show university-level English proficiency, something Labor said amounted to a “White Australia” policy by discriminating against immigrants from nonEnglish-speaking nations.

Opponents chided Turnbull for describing the new law as putting “Australian values” at the heart of the citizenship process.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton shrugged off the setback in the Senate and vowed to reintroduce an amended bill that would slightly ease the Englishlanguage requirements.

He offered to push back application of the new Citizenship Act until July rather than make it retroactive to the date of Turnbull’s announcement in April.

But the government stood firm on the four-year residency requirement, saying it was vital to weed out criminal elements before they became citizens. AFP