As trial balloons go, this one hasn’t floated very far. Last week, speaking to Gerard Henderson’s Sydney Institute, the federal social inclusion minister (sic), Tanya Plibersek, suggested that Australian schoolchildren should learn and recite the pledge used in citizenship ceremonies, pledging loyalty to “Australia and its people”.
Her call has been pretty much ignored so far. So why shouldn’t young Australians pledge allegiance in the same way that new citizens do?
Two reasons spring immediately to mind. First, because they’re children: the citizenship pledge is designed for adults, who are presumed to know what they’re doing and understand the obligations they’re taking on. Children, particularly in a school setting, don’t have that luxury. Even if the pledge were to be voluntary in theory, the official setting and peer pressure would remove any meaningful element of choice for most students.
The second reason is that most students are already citizens.
Citizenship is their birthright; reciting or refusing to recite a pledge of allegiance would make zero difference to that. Plibersek’s proposal amounts to a suggestion that they need to do something extra before becoming “real” Australians, an idea that undermines the whole notion of citizenship by birth.
I’ve been thinking a bit about citizenship recently (I have a piece on it in the current edition of Policy, although for now it’s subscriber-only), and in the long run I suspect that citizenship will lose most of its special status. The attempt to reinforce the notion of “allegiance” — already problematic due to our liberal dual-citizenship laws — is a throwback to an earlier era, fighting against the trend.
It also draws explicitly on the American practice of reciting the US pledge of allegiance, despite the supreme court ruling that such requirements are unconstitutional. In the leading case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943, Justice Robert Jackson laid down that “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
In the 1988 presidential election, Democrat Michael Dukakis was wrong-footed by attacks for having vetoed a pledge of allegiance requirement in Massachusetts. Gary Trudeau in Doonesbury had a political consultant telling Dukakis to reply with “You know, not so long ago, people were beaten and driven from their homes for refusing to say the pledge on religious grounds. Does the vice-president really identify with that kind of unthinking bigotry?”
But Plibersek seems immune to such considerations. Her pledge call is reminiscent of former education minister Brendan Nelson and his mad attempts to have students salute the Australian flag. But it also taps into a rich vein of Labor attempts to outbid the Coalition in jingoism.
Back in 2006, for example, then-leader Kim Beazley suggested that applicants for an Australian visa should be “required to sign off on” a statement of Australian “values”. This was supposed to be a weapon against “extremists and terrorists”, although it was unclear how many terrorists would be deterred by the need to tick such a box on their visa form.
These recurring attempts are not just bad policy, but foolish politics.
If the things driving your choice of who to vote for are xenophobia and unthinking nationalism, you’re going to go for the Coalition — Tampa alone should have made that clear. But just like the Malaysian Solution, Plibersek’s idea shows that the lesson has not been learnt.
You have to wonder what is driving this paddling around in right wing politics by Labor politicians. Is it just to bid to outwit the Coalition? Labor politicians certainly seem haunted by fear of the swinging voter in the marginal seat, and seem to keep coming up with ideas that they think might appeal to such voters. I wonder how many Labor pollies have actually met these voters and talked to them?
But with Labor on something between 27% and 34% primary vote, even with Green preferences, they would not be elected if an election were held now, so swinging voters in marginal seats are irrelevant. Of course, there is a long way to go to the next election and a lot of work to do on voters to convince them to give Labor another go. Personally, I don’t think this idea of having children taking a pledge at school is even going to register with the busy swinging voter. Talk to them about mortgages, interest rates, taxes ( and that they are not going to be hit with the carbon tax), work life balance, fairness in the workplace, and the fact that refugees will never be any threat to them, and they may take some interest.
Mindlessly repeating slogans is probably not the way to go about it but how do you ensure that our children are brought up with some kind of social ethos/framework and to associate with Australia’s aspirations as a country?
@Mark From Melbourne:
How do we ensure our children grow up to be “good” Australians?
1. Cut out the baby bonus and put it into our education system.
2. Take red drink off the shelves or only allow it to over 18 year olds.
3. Teach cooking and nutrition to not only the students but the parents of our schoolchildren.
There’s a start.
The pollies are in for a massive pay rise so no wonder they’re starting to come up with stuff like this. Gillard will be getting more than the U.S. president and for a tin pot country like this!! you have to wonder.
As a Victorian state schoolboy from 1945 to 1956, I was required every Monday morning to join in singing God Save the King (Queen from 1952), saluting the flag (a red ensign to 1950, then a blue ensign) and reciting “I love God and my country, I honor the flag, I will serve the King/Queen, and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the law.”
Many of us forget to include teachers in our recitation as we got older.
This hasn’t prevented me from becoming a republican atheist who would like to see a flag that doesn’t have another country’s flag in the top left hand corner indicating ownership of the country.
A wise man said that patriotism is the refuge of a scoundrel.
Interestingly the oath of allegiance used at citizenship ceremonies has two optional words, under God, with the new citizen having the choice. Which version does Plibersek have in mind?
Politicians are scared of religious groups, in spite of the fact that “no religion” is becoming the choice at census time for the religion answer. I understand that the two words were inserted during John Howard’s term. He was not a conspicuous church attender, and the only prime ministers in my memory (from Chifley onwards) who made a show of Sunday worship were Gorton and Rudd. Whitlam, Hawke and Gillard were honest enough to admit non-belief.