CANBERRA -- Politically loaded questions such as "is it OK to assault your partner behind closed doors?" and "is it acceptable to keep girls from school?" could be added to a tough new test to become an Australian citizen.

The Huffington Post Australia understands the possible questions, and several others which may be red flags to certain migrant groups, are the type of "new and more meaningful" values questions that could be proposed for addition to the Howard Government-era citizenship test under sweeping changes to be outlined by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday.

The 457 visa scrapping is just the start of something much, much morehttps://t.co/X4OWsaZdDN #457visas pic.twitter.com/ODq1dOy3ev

— HuffPost Australia (@HuffPostAU) April 19, 2017

 

And there is no wait for the changes to kick in. The new requirements will apply to all new applications.

"We are putting Australian values at the heart of citizenship processes and requirements," Turnbull will say on Thursday.

"Membership of the Australian family is a privilege and should be afforded to those who support our values, respect our laws and want to work hard by integrating and contributing to an even better Australia."

read more:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/04/19/turnbull-government-to-add-a...

 

 

BLACKTOWN, Australia — The teenage boys rush the ball down the court, knowing that the losing team will face another round of the lung-crushing wind sprints that make their borrowed gym at a police athletic center here even more confining.

“Ball, ball,” yells Henry Makeny. He’s 16 years old, 6-foot-6, and he’s posting up on his friend, Gum Majak, who is an inch taller.

Passes move around the outside, through hand-in-your-face defense, past shouting opponents. Finally, Henry gets the ball. He immediately spins and elevates. He’s over the rim but he doesn’t quite have control, and misses.

“He needs to understand how to slow down sometimes,” says Mayor Chagai, 32, one of his coaches, a Lost Boy from South Sudan who learned basketball at a refugee camp in Kenya. “He needs to use his speed wisely.”

Like Henry, this club of Sudanese-Australians who call themselves Savannah Pride (as in a pride of lions) has found itself hurtling from casual play to something much more tied to the power centers of big-time basketball.

read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/sports/basketball/australia-south-sudan.html

 

From the Inked-in Image (published 1970).

Labor has rejected the Turnbull government's citizenship package, largely over fears it would require citizens demonstrate "university level" English that many migrants and Australian-born residents would never reach.

Mr Dutton on Wednesday said Labor had confused the two versions of the main global English test, known as IELTS. The government would require a score of six on the "general" stream, not the "academic" one, he said.

He noted the general test, according to its own description, focused on "basic survival skills in broad social and workplace contexts", while the academic version was designed for people applying to study in an English-speaking country.

But Catherine Elder, a world-leading expert at Melbourne University and president of the International Language Testing Association, said it was wrong to assert that one test was more difficult than the other.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/world-expert-rebuf...

 

See old toon above...