Over the fold are three questions from the proposed citizenship test for new Australian citizens. One of the questions is a trick one. Can you spot it?
1. The Capital of Australia is…
a. Sydney
b. Melbourne
c. Hobart
d. Canberra
e. Washington
2. Australia’s values are based on the …
a. Teachings of the Koran
b. The Judaeo-Christian tradition
c. Catholicism
d. Secularism
3. What song is Australia’s national anthem?
a. God Save the Queen
b. Star Spangled Banner
c. Advance Australia Fair
d. Waltzing Matilda
e. Khe Sanh
So, how many you spotted that the trick question is…
Question number 2 with the supposedly correct answer of b! Wonder if there will be a question on how the 10 commandments are the basis for Australian law?
Of the twenty released so far, there are more than a couple of shockers.
Obviously there is ‘values based on’ question, but there are also some ‘all of the above’ questions where a person would have to be insane not to select that option.
There is also a dubious question about who the head of state of australia is, with two of the options being the queen and the governor-general. The ‘correct’ answer is the queen, but this is something of a controversial position, depending on how one interprets the constituion and the role of ‘queens representative’.
It would seem to be more sensible to leave off questions that dont have simple, non-controversial answers. But this reveals the fundamental silliness of having such a test at all, because nearly any question worth asking will have a complicated answer.
2. Australia’s values are based on…
a. Kath & Kim
b. Big Brother
c. Neighbours
d. Who Wants to be a Millionaire
For me, the standout question was about the Head of State. The correct answer is the Queen. The Prime Minister is on the record saying that is the wrong answer:
How can he expect immigrants to answer “the Queen” when he would answer “the Governor-General”?
“1. The Capital of Australia is…”
Well in fairness, if you’re going to ask that, then you also have to ask “What is your quest?” “What is your favorite color?” and “What is the air-speed velocity of a swallow?”
Actually, the above litany would make a much better and more amusing citizenship test. Anyone who doesn’t get the reference and start giggling right away, gets booted. Think of what it would do for your nerd quotas! Oz would become the world capital of software engineering in less than a generation!
Shaun: “Question number 2 with the supposedly correct answer of b!”
Actually, no, there’s not much ’supposedly’ about it. It’s quite a correct answer, (except for maybe the ‘Judeo’ part, which in these cliche dust-ups never gets quite the complex individual scrutiny it merits), if arguably incomplete.
Australia, like all Western countries, has a value system deeply rooted in Christian values and tradition. Just because you’d prefer for it to not be so, doesn’t mean it’s not the case. And you don’t have to be a professing Christian for your values to be fundamentally Christian in nature; if you’re a Westerner, they’re pretty much that way regardless, and the whole kit and kaboodle was determined long before you learned your ABCs. You think perhaps you got them from the “Lun Yu” or the Ramayana?
So… How do fish know when they’re wet?
I don’t think we should forget Helen’s magnificent effort from an earlier thread. http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/18/friday-focus-thingie-2/#comment-368015 I hope nobody minds if I reproduce it. If so, please feel free to spaminate:
Australian Government
Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs
Application for Grant of Australian Citizenship
You must answer 75% (28 or more out of 37) of these questions correctly in order to qualify for Australian Citizenship
1. How many slabs can you fit in the back of a Falcon Ute while also allowing room for your cattle dog?
2. When packing an Esky do you put the ice, or the beer, in first?
3. Is the traditional Aussie Christmas dinner:
a) At least two roasted meats with roast vegetables, followed by a pudding you could use as a cannonball. Also ham. In 40C heat.
b) A seafood buffet followed by a barbie, with rather a lot of booze. And ham. In 40C heat.
c) Both of the above, one at lunchtime and one at dinnertime. Weather continues fine.
4. How many beers in a slab?
5. You call that a knife, this is a knife.
True or False?
6. Does “yeah-nah� mean
a) “Yes and no�
b) “Maybe�
c) “Yes I understand but No I don’t agree�?
7. The phrases “strewth� and “flamin’ dingo� can be attributed to which TV character?
a) Toadie from Neighbours
b) Alf from Home & Away
c) Agro from Agro’s Cartoon Connection
d) Sgt. Tom Croydon from Blue Heelers?
8. When cooking a barbecue do you turn the sausages
a) Once or twice
b) As often as necessary to cook
c) After each stubby
d) Until charcoal?
9. Name three of the Daddo brothers.
10. Who was the original lead singer of AC/DC?
11. Which option describes your ideal summer afternoon:
a) Drinking beer at a mate’s place
b) Drinking beer at the beach
c) Drinking beer watching the cricket/footy
d) Drinking beer at a mate’s place while watching the cricket before going to the beach?
12. Would you eat pineapple on pizza? Would you eat egg on a pizza?
13. How many cans of beer did David Boon consume on a plane trip from Australia to England?
14. How many stubbies is it from Brissy to the Gold Coast in a Torana travelling at 120km/h?
15. Who are Scott and Charlene?
16. How do you apply your tomato sauce to a pie?
a) Squirt and spread with finger
b) Sauce injection straight into the middle?
17. If the police raided your home would you:
a) Allow them to rummage through your personal items
b) Phone up the nearest talkback radio shock jock and complain
c) Put a written complaint in to John Howard and hope that he answers it personally?
18. Which Australian Prime Minister held the world record for drinking a yardie full of beer the fastest?
19. Have you ever had/do you have a mullet?
20. Thongs are:
a) Skimpy underwear
b) Casual footwear
c) They’re called jandals, bro?
21. On which Ashes tour did Warney’s hair look the best?
a) 1993
b) 1997
c) 2001
d) 2005
22. What is someone more likely to die of:
a) Red Back Spider
b) Great White Shark
c) Victorian Police Officer
d) King Brown Snake
e) Your missus after a big night
f) Dropbear?
23. How many times must a steak be turned on a conventional four-burner barbie?
24. Can you sing along to Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh?
25. Explain both the “follow-on� and “LBW� rules in cricket and discuss the pros and cons for the third umpire decisions in the latter….
26. Name at least 5 items that must be taken to a BBQ.
27. Who is current Australian test cricket captain:
a) Ricky Ponting
b) Don Bradman
c) John Howard
d) Makybe Diva?
28. Is it best to take a sick day on:
a) When the cricket’s on
b) When the cricket’s on
c) When the cricket’s on?
29. What animal is on the Bundaberg Rum bottle?
30. What is the difference between a pot and a middy of beer?
31. What are Budgie smugglers?
32. What brand and size of Esky will you be purchasing?
33. Did you cry when Molly died on a Country Practice?
34. A “Hoppoate� is:
a) A breed of kangaroo
b) A kind of Autralian “wedgie�
c) A disgraced Rugby League player?
35. What does having a ‘chunder’ mean?
36. When you were young did you prefer the Hills Hoist over any swing set?
37. What does the terminology ‘True Blue’ mean?
Your Score ………….
For Office use only.
[] In
[] Out
[] Can have another crack at it
Um, I don’t think you could actually suggest that ‘Australia’ has a value system j_p_z, since it’s basically an idea and a set of institutions and not an entity in itself with a consciousness. You could speak of the Judeo-Christian tradition informing the values of a majority of Australian citizens - who are an institutionally defined category of people, or of it shaping many of those institutions, or even the dominant culture, but talking about Australia as though it is a moral entity capable of judgement is a little difficult to sustain. The nation may be a social fact, but that alone does not give it a set of values.
Which is not to suggest that changing values and rejecting that tradition are simply a matter of changing our minds, either. So I take your point, but with the above qualifications.
You and Tom Paine, Christine.
In a former age, CK, you would have come to the attention of authorities as a “known” pamphleteer, restrained in stocks in the village marketplace and pelted with yesterday’s peaches.
Which seemed like much more fun than the prospect of perfunctory public spamination.
I loved it the first time, Christine, and I still love it now.
Only on Q18 - it was a half yard
Just to remind you I only reproduced it. Helen is the genius who wrote it http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/18/friday-focus-thingie-2/#comment-368015
‘Our’ values are ‘Judeo-Christian’? Manning Clark could live with that: But it shows that when it suits them, the govt ignores the history book of Aussie exceptionalism it otherwise wants to thrust down every child’s gullet. From convict settlement through gold rushes and on through Gallipoli there’s been an essentially secular ethic at play.
So j_p_z
Being only little and new here in this Jewish Christian land of ours, what is it in the Ramayana that you feel does not fit in to Australian values? What about the Jewish and Christian values of Australia (yeah right) is in dissonance with the values espoused in the Ramayana?
Australia, like all Western countries, has a value system deeply rooted in Christian values and tradition.
Exactly where is it and how is this so? Can you please point to this Australian value system and demonstrate that it is Christian.
I’ve already said why I think the “Judaeo-Christian” bit is inappropriate and wrong, here.
And on another note entirely, since Little Johnny is likely to have problems with the correct answers for the “Head of State” and “Values” questions, what are the odds that he can get enough answers wrong to qualify him to be thrown out of the country?
Another question asks about the form of government - two alternatives being ‘a monarchy’ and ‘a parliamentary democracy’. The latter is the ‘correct’ answer.
I hope someone tells the Parliamentary Education office, which is still misleading kiddies into believing that ‘Australia is a constitutional monarchy’.
So glad I don’t have to deal with this cluster-flock. June 10, I will be a citizen, no inane questions needed!
jpz: African or European?
jpz; when they say “Judeo-Christian values” they actually mean “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant”. The give-away is the fact that “Catholicism” is one of the other answers (i.e. in contrasting Judeo-Christianity to Catholicism and the rest of the “wrong” answers). It also ignores the fact that institutionally, Australia is a secular state (another one of the answers).
Yes, and of course I have a Judeo-Christian outlook; I’m a white Anglo-Irish Protestant, but only to the point that culture helped spawn the North-Western European Enlightenment - a description I would regard as more accurate than any answer given in the questionnaire.
JPZ: actually the test should be a recital of the lyrics of either “Jailbreak”, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” or “Can I Sit Next To You Girl?” followed by a air-guitar demonstration of Angus’ techniques. Can’t get more Judeo-Christian Aussie Values than that.
We’ve all been had, apparently.
“We’ve all been had”
Laugh…The left has been had for the last 150 years..
Well, on this topic, so were NinMSN and various other MSM organisations Oigal.
Appropriate name for a troll BTW.
The government decided it couldn’t use these questions when they gave the test to the members of parliament and half of them failed.
If any Australian scored less than 18/20 on that test, they are thick. Plenty are.
Amazingly, several prospective citizens, each of more than five years continuous residency and white collar workers, have been hard pressed to score 3/20.
So we’ve been dudded. Just file your thoughts away for when the issue comes up again.
Yes, I thought the questions seemed to be lacking in the gravitas one would expect from a citizenship questionnaire.
I expected something more like the existing Canadian quiz. http://www.yourlibrary.ca/citizenship/
Trouble is Shaun, I’m not sure who done the dudding.
That’s why I’m looking forward to Media Watch tomorrow night (or maybe next week)…