Australian Values Statement: What Each Clause Says

A clause-by-clause guide to the Australian Values Statement on the Home Affairs website, covering freedoms, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, equal opportunity, a fair go and English.

What the Australian Values Statement says

The Australian Values Statement is published by the Department of Home Affairs on its official Immigration and Citizenship website. It is written as a short list that begins with ‘I understand that Australian society values’, followed by a set of named principles. Read it as a list of principles, each with its own wording, rather than as one paragraph to memorise.

The statement names seven top-level groups: respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual; freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of association; commitment to the rule of law; parliamentary democracy; equality of opportunity regardless of listed characteristics; a fair go for all; and English as the national language. On the rendered page, the four parts of the fair go sit underneath that heading as nested items. The list describes the structure of the page. It does not limit Australian values to any fixed number of ideas.

Freedom and dignity of the individual

The first element is respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual. The wording puts the individual at the centre of the list. Each of the elements that follow can be read as one way that freedom and dignity show up in public life: in what a person may believe, say, join, and how the law treats them.

Freedom of religion, speech and association

The statement names three freedoms together. Freedom of religion is described as including ‘the freedom not to follow a particular religion’. The clause therefore covers both following a religion and choosing not to follow a particular one. It is a statement about freedom, not a statement about anyone’s personal beliefs.

Freedom of speech and freedom of association are listed alongside it. Speech refers to what people may say. Association refers to what people may join or form with others. Reading the three as a group helps show that the statement is describing a set of related freedoms, each named separately.

A simple way to check your understanding is to take each freedom and write one sentence that says who holds it and what it protects. If you cannot name the protected activity, reread the clause before moving on.

Rule of law and parliamentary democracy

The rule of law element says that ‘all people are subject to the law and should obey it’. The key word is ‘all’. The clause describes the law applying to everyone in the same way, without exception for a particular group. Read it as a principle about the law’s reach.

The parliamentary democracy element has two parts. First, our laws are ‘determined by parliaments elected by the people’. This describes where laws come from. Second, those laws are ‘paramount and overriding any other inconsistent religious or secular laws’. This describes how parliamentary laws relate to religious or secular rules that conflict with them.

A hypothetical helps. Suppose a family practice conflicts with a law passed by an elected parliament. The statement says the parliamentary law is the one that prevails over the inconsistent rule. This is a hypothetical illustration of the principle, not legal advice, and it does not describe how any particular case would be decided.

Keep the two parts separate when you study them. One part is about the origin of laws. The other is about precedence between laws and other rules.

Equality of opportunity

The statement says ‘equality of opportunity for all people, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, race, or national or ethnic origin’. The clause names these characteristics specifically. When you explain it, quote the list as written and avoid treating it as a loose example of a wider idea.

The same idea appears again inside the fair go element, where equality of opportunity is one of four named components. Noticing the repetition helps you see that equality of opportunity is a value the statement treats as central, and that it is stated in two places with the same core wording.

A fair go for all and English

The fair go element is described as something that ‘embraces’ four things: mutual respect; tolerance; compassion for those in need; and equality of opportunity for all. Each of these is a separate item, so you can study them one at a time. Mutual respect and tolerance describe how people treat each other. Compassion for those in need describes how people respond to hardship. Equality of opportunity was covered in the previous section.

The final element calls English ‘the national language, and an important unifying element of Australian society’. The statement makes two points in one sentence. It names English as the national language, and it describes English as a unifying element. Keep those two descriptions separate when you write about them. The statement describes the role of English in the way the sentence is worded, and this article explains that wording only.

How to study the Statement clause by clause

Start by copying the statement from the official Home Affairs page.

Number each element from one to seven.

For each element, write the main subject and the main verb.

Underline any condition, such as ‘regardless of’ or ‘inconsistent with’.

Write a one-sentence summary in your own words.

Check each summary against the original wording.

Note which summaries use words the statement does not use, and replace them with the statement’s own terms.

What this site adds and what it does not

Australian Values is an independent editorial site. It is not a government or political-party voice. The site explains public information objectively. Where a site explanation and an official source differ, the site’s editorial policy is to use the official wording as the reference. That policy belongs to the site, and it is not a statement by Home Affairs.

The site groups its study material into five editorial learning themes. These themes are study groupings. They are not an exhaustive list of official Australian values, and they are not the questions used in any official test. The site’s practice questions are original and are not official test-bank questions. Its examples are hypothetical and are not legal advice or guaranteed outcomes.

When you use this article, treat the official statement as the text to check against. Use the site’s explanations to help you read the wording more closely.