A councillor in a remote WA mining community is urging the Federal Government to make changes to the Australian citizenship test. He has written to the Prime Minister in support of a woman who is a valued member of her community and is about to make another eight-hour road trip to attempt the test for the sixth time.
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00:00In WA's mining heartland, one of the most important days in these migrants' lives has
00:09arrived.
00:10I've spent more than half my life here, so it feels like home.
00:14But just a few streets away, becoming an Australian feels a long way off.
00:18Nett Wolcock has tried, and failed, to pass the citizenship test five times.
00:22I don't understand why the citizenship is so hard, because I studied a lot about that.
00:29For each test sitting, she has to drive an eight-hour round trip to Kerala.
00:33Every time we go to family, we spend a thousand, maybe more.
00:38Her husband says there's no one more deserving of citizenship than his wife.
00:42It'd be nice if they could have some sort of way of just finding the good people, you
00:48know, like just sort of green-lighting people that are actually active in the community
00:53and rather than, yeah, just someone that was academic that could answer a question doesn't
00:58necessarily make you a good person.
01:00In 2020, five questions on Australian values were added to the test, a change made in part
01:05to encourage better English language skills.
01:07Personally, I don't think it passed the PUP test.
01:10A local council member is advocating for Nett Wolcock by sending a letter to the Prime
01:14Minister asking him to review the content of the test.
01:17If you know what a stop sign is, a green or red light or an amber light, if you know you've
01:22got to pay taxes, you've got to pay, I think the other more important things.
01:26Since 2020, the pass rate for first attempts at the citizenship test has dropped from 94%
01:32to 84%.
01:33In the 2023-24 calendar year, more than 25,000 people failed on their first try.
01:39A spokesperson for the Assistant Citizenship Minister, Julian Hill, told the ABC the test
01:44is regularly reviewed to ensure the language and questions are clear and fair.
01:49Nett Wolcock is booked in to have another crack at the test here in Karratha at the
01:53end of the month and is hoping to get over the line this time.