Could you pass the English test the Turnbull Government wants to introduce?

THE Government is struggling to get support for its changes to the citizenship test, called a “bizarre act of snobbery”.

THE Turnbull Government is struggling to get support for its changes to the citizenship test, with Labor criticising it as a “bizarre act of snobbery”.

In particular its plan to introduce an English language test to ensure people have a competent level of reading, writing, listening and speaking, has been controversial.

Currently, Australia does not have an English test but those who were able to pass the citizenship test were considered fluent enough in English to pass the equivalent of Level 5 of the International English Language Testing Scheme (IELTS).

The government now wants migrants to sit for a separate English test before they take the citizenship test, and it wants the test to be set at a more challenging Level 6.

It is the same level that permanent skilled migrants would have to achieve to gain direct entry into Australia.

Some have suggested this is equivalent to university level English, something the government has dismissed.

People aged over 60 and children under 16 will be exempt, as will those with hearing, speech or sight impairments, or permanent or enduring physical or mental incapacity.

On the IELTS website, it says results are allocated to one of nine bands, with a score of 6.0 considered acceptable for “linguistically demanding training courses” but probably not enough for “linguistically demanding academic courses”.

The test is marked overseas by the University of Cambridge, and is broken up into listening, reading, writing and speaking.

In the reading and listening sections, participants get a mark out of 40. To achieve a band score of 6 in reading you need to get a score of about 30 out of 40. For listening it’s about 23 out of 40.

It’s difficult to gauge how difficult this is as the IELTS is marked overseas and scores to achieve the bands can change each year.

But there are some sample questions available on the IELTS site to give you an idea of what people are expected to answer.

One sample task to test people’s writing suggests they should take 40 minutes to write “at least 250 words” on whether the government should pay for aged care, while another 20 minute question asks for 150 words on a letter of complaint about a roommate.

Participants are assessed on content, organisation of ideas and accuracy and range of vocabulary and grammar.

Sample IELTS question.

A sample IELTS question.

Sample answer marked as a Band 5 for writing section of IELTS.

Reading questions ask participants to analyse advertisements or pieces of writing and answer questions about the content. Some of questions are in multiple choice form.

Sample reading question from IELTS.

Opposition spokesman on citizenship Tony Burke rejected the conservative government’s argument that the changes were needed to safeguard Australia against mounting security challenges.

Mr Burke condemned the government’s plan to raise the English-language benchmark from “basic” to “competent” as a “bizarre act of snobbery” that “guarantees we will have a new permanent underclass.”

The new English test would “introduce permanently in Australia a large group of people, an increasingly large group of people, who will always live here, will never be asked to take allegiance to this country and will always be told by the Australian government they don’t completely belong,” Mr Burke said.

“Now that is a big change in how this country operates and it’s a change that Labor cannot support,” he added.

As well as the English test, the government also wants to change the period of permanent residency from one year to four, introduce a new values test, and stronger character checks.

An applicant can also be barred for two years if the minister has refused to approve them becoming a citizen on grounds other than failing to meet the residence requirement.

Mr Burke said the caucus unanimously decided on Tuesday to oppose the bill, meaning the Coalition will need to seek 10 crossbench votes to pass it through the Senate.

“The government in its bill has engaged in a massive over-reach ... and they have taken some steps, which, put simply, Australia should never take and are inconsistent with who we are as a country,” Mr Burke told reporters in Canberra.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (left) and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton announced new citizenship changes in April. Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

He said it had nothing to do with national security.

“If there is a national security problem for these people, then why on earth does the government have them already living here permanently?” Mr Burke said.

Labor also took exception to the longer time frame for people to wait for citizenship and the English language test.

“Once you set the test at a level by definition large numbers of permanent residents will never reach, no matter how hard they try, that changes our country.” Mr Burke also took aim at Peter Dutton, saying the Immigration Minister was playing a “dangerous game” linked to leadership tensions in the Liberal party.

Labor will back a Senate inquiry into the bill.

If the inquiry comes up with any reasonable changes, Labor would support them being included in a new bill.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hit back at criticism of the changes.

“If you are going to get on and succeed and do your best in Australia, you need to have English,” he said.

“You’re doing people a favour by making it a requirement.”

He said requiring people to be a permanent resident for four years was a lesser period than most other comparable countries.

“Labor is not valuing Australian citizenship,” he said.

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— With AAP