Migrants hoping to settle in Australia will need to learn the rudiments of being a mate and swot up on horse racing and cricket under a new citizenship test announced yesterday.

Aspiring citizens will be required to sign up to a statement of values, which attempts to define one of the greater mysteries of life in Australia for newly arrived foreigners: what does being called “mate” mean ?

They may be little the wiser after reading the statement of values - drafted by Kevin Andrews, Australia’s Immigration Minister, and approved by John Howard, the Prime Minister.

Mateship is defined as a tradition “where people help and receive help from others voluntarily, especially in times of adversity. A mate can be a spouse, partner, brother, sister, daughter, son or a friend. A mate can be also a complete stranger.”

The elevation of mateship - however opaque - into a formal statement of Australian values is a late victory for Mr Howard, who has been Prime Minister for more than a decade. In 1999 he tried to change Australia’s constitution so that its preamble contained a reference to “mate-ship”. But his wish was rejected by Australian voters. The new tests for citizenship - which will include a requirement that applicants have lived for four years in Australia instead of the current three - are part of the Howard Government’s plans to promote Australian values further after violent beachside clashes in Sydney in 2005 between Muslim and white youths draped in Australian flags.

Applicants for citizenship will also have to answer 20 questions - drawn at random from a pool of 200 - that examine knowledge of Australia’s history, governance and culture. Applicants will be asked to study a Government booklet that devotes several paragraphs to the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s best-known horse race, and also to the country’s obsession with cricket and other sports.

It contains a none too subtle dig at the English, remarking: “The English were a keen sporting people but in Australia more people could watch and participate in sport. This was partly because people had more leisure time, earned more money and partly because the climate was good and there were plenty of open spaces to play in, even within the cities.”

Prospective new Australians will read in the Government’s booklet of the “immense pleasure” Australians enjoyed when they first beat England at cricket in 1882. And they will read, not of the awful cruelties inflicted upon convicts from Britain sent to Australia, but instead of their rosy legacy: “By embracing their convict past, Australians have shown they believe that this is a better place than the old world; people driven to crime in Britain could make a fresh start here. Australians have also become a people who don’t care much about a person’s background or past behaviour. People are judged by who they are now.”

There will be plenty in modern Australia who would regard that as a bit of a stretch. But at least they will find candour in the final paragraphs that concern the Aborigines – a people to whom the Howard Government has long refused an apology for past injustices. Although the word massacre is avoided, the booklet contains the most forthright admission yet seen in a government publication of the Howard era that atrocities occurred. That will be welcomed not only by Australia’s newest settlers, but also by its oldest.“

So you think you want to be an Aussie?

Some of the questions that prospective citizens face

1 In what year did Federation take place?

2 Which day of the year is Australia Day?

3 Who was the first Prime Minister of Australia?

4 What is the first line of Australia's national anthem?

5 What is the floral emblem of Australia?

6 What is the population of Australia?

7 In what city is the Parliament House of the Commonwealth [nation] located?

8 What are the colours on the Australian flag?

Answers 1) 1901 2) January 26 3) Edmund Barton 4) Australians all let us rejoice 5) Wattle 6) Approximately 21 million 7) Canberra 8) Red, white and blue

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