Identifying and Measuring “Australian Values”

Abstract

This article criticizes the “values” component of the proposed Australian citizenship test. A comparison is made with Rokeach's values and with existing Australian School Values (from DEST) and the author identifies a set of “Real Aussie Values” that in his view represent normative Australian beliefs about how our citizens should behave. He argues, however, that it should be an unconstitutional restriction of free speech (which includes freedom of beliefs) to require prospective citizens to endorse values and that ideal Australian values can only be acquired by voluntary socialization.