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The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader attended citizenship ceremonies as part of the 2013 celebrations of Australia Day.
Julia Gillard spoke and presented citizenship certificates at a ceremony in Canberra. Amongst others, she welcomed the actor Miriam Margolyes as an Australian citizen. [Read more…]
The Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison, has delivered a speech on immigration and multiculturalism in which he depicts Australia as a nation of “adopted children” and calls for Australians to honour their national inheritance.
The speech was delivered at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, Kings College, London.
Morrison argues that Australia’s nationalism “is divorced from ethnicity, race and religion, disarming what is often a volatile and potentially negative combination”.
He says the “traditions, values and ethnic culture” of immigrants to Australia “are part of the process of transition from our old lands, culture and ways of life to the new that has been part of the national and cultural journey of Australians for centuries. It is an iterative process, taking place over a lifetime and generations, as we exchange and adapt the old for the new, bringing what’s best, leaving the rest and embracing over time a new national identity”.
Morrison points to Henry Parkes, Robert Lowe and WC Wentworth as examples of the inheritors of a “modern liberal democratic immigration nation” becoming its stewards.
The Howard government reoriented multiculturalism, says Morrison. It sought “to bring a greater focus on what communities had in common as Australians”, adopting a policy that “deliberately set out to explicitly recognize the supremacy of Australian values, the primacy of the English language, respect for existing institutions and adherence to the rule of law”. [Read more…]
Australia Day embodies a “profound truth and a simple irony”, according to the Prime Minister, John Howard.
According to Howard, “the truth is that people come to this country because they want to be Australians. The irony is that no institution or code lays down a test of Australianness. Such is the nature of our free society.”
Addressing the National Press Club in the Great Hall of Canberra’s Parliament House, Howard fielded many questions about yesterday’s reshuffle and the position of the National Party, but his speech focussed on what he said was “the secret of Australia’s greatness – our sense of balance”. [Read more…]
This is a leaflet on citizenship issued by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs in 2004. [Read more…]