Reuters reports that the Australian government intends to remove knowledge of cricket from its citizenship test. Good grief! What sort of people are they planning to let into the country? Americans?
(Note to Aussie authorities: Mr. Obama won the election. You are not going to be swamped by disappointed Democrat supporters seeking political asylum. And the Republicans are not leaving, they are just holing up in bunkers in Montana.)
The Cricket idiocy was a legacy of Howard’s Government. Why should a Somali refugee who has fled the massacre of his family need to know about a bunch of overpaid twits running around a paddock when applying for citizenship? John Howard was a cricket fan, so the question was there. It’s as if I had been PM and put a citizenship question about who played Alvin Purple.
Huh. I read this message on my RSS feed without noticing who wrote it, and I was positive it was Justine Larbalestier, cricket-loving Aussie.
Ya never know….
Terry:
The fact that John Howard liked cricket just goes to show that even the most awful of people can have one small redeeming feature. He was, of course, abominable on issues of race an immigration. However, I think you may be stretching a point here because unless Australia does things differently you don’t need to pass a citizenship test to get asylum.
El:
I am, of course, deeply flattered to have been mistaken for a real Australian. 🙂
I’m not headed to Montana yet, but moving to Australia is still a tempting idea. Think I could get political asylum?
You could try, Matt, but before you jump ship you should note that the ruling political party in Australia actually claims to be a Socialist party, as opposed to the Obama administration which is Socialist only in the fevered imaginings of Americans who have no idea what the word “Socialist” means.
(Note to Australians: Yes, I know the ALP isn’t exactly Socialist in practice, but it is still a lot more left wing than the Democrats.)