Australia to fingerprint wannabe citizens

Melbourne, Sep 24 (UNI) Australia is considering fingerprinting of citizenship applicants as a part of the new measures to introduce stringent criteria for those migrants who want to become citizens.

If the government proposal becomes a rule, the waiting period for a migrant to be an Australian citizen would become four from the previous two.

The skilled immigrants will have to, according to the proposed measures, undergo rigorous skills assessment to become eligible to enter Australia. It would include the earlier-announced English proficiency test and also one about Australian values.

Australia is currently experiencing severe skills shortage with India, UK and New Zealand being the top three countries from where migrants are pouring in.

The 'new Australians' from the above named countries may not face much problem with English and other tests to become citizens, but migrants from China, South America and West Asia are likely to face considerable difficulties in clearing the tests.

The proposal to introduce new measures for citizenship applicants has already attracted strong criticism from both sides of politics.

Even the members of the ruling party are criticising that the John Howard government is planning to make citizenship harder for especially those who come from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Prime Minister John Howard had earlier made it clear that the new tests would be in place before next elections.

More details of the proposed changes have come to light as the new Australian citizens would have to sit in a computer test consisting of 35 questions with some of the questions offering multiple answers.

The proposed Australian citizenship test would be like the one conducted in the US with Australian values component being the one prominent distinctive feature.

There would not be, according to some media reports, any limit on the number of times one could sit for the test and there would be exemptions for the minors, the aged and the disabled.

The citizenship test is believed to be devised by Andrew Robb, parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Amanda Vanstone.

''A formal citizenship test should be a valuable part of that process ensuring that people are ready to fully participate in the Australian community,'' Mr Robb was quoted as saying by the Australian media.

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