Mum had no time for Australian values. In fact, she was pretty vocal on the topic. Australians allowed their kids to roam around after school on bikes. No-one knew where their kids were from one minute to the next. And there was this massive focus on sport. What on earth was that all about?

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And worst, Australian parents seemed to have little interest in homework, in their kids doing well at school. Whereas, my parents were obsessed with school and academic work (I don't - quite - share their focus). Also, sure, learn English - but many other languages. She spoke a number but her English was far from perfect.

Now it turns out that we are about to have an Australian Values Statement which prospective migrants will have to sign. It will be legally binding. This is just one of the strange policy promises made about migration by the leader of the opposition, Angus Taylor, last week at the Menzies Research Centre.

Haha. Mum and Dad would have failed dismally - and that, I'd argue, would have been a net loss to Australia. They produced three taxpayers who in turn produced five taxpayers. Mostly law-abiding. I'm not entirely sure my sister, may she rest in peace, had due respect for speed limits - but otherwise, all good.

Australian values? Why? What?

I asked Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman what he thought Australian values should be. He was quick to respond: dignity, equity and respect.

"These are the values we should aspire to and our systems and institutions don't always respect those values," he said.

Anyhow, I wasn't entirely sure what Australian values are so I looked them up. This is what visa applicants have to sign if they want to come here. I bet they are as puzzled as me.

Apparently, number one, freedom and respect of individuals. Number two, various freedoms including religion, speech, association (yay for unions). Three: Commitment to the rule of law. Four: Parliamentary democracy. Five: Equality of opportunity for everyone, no matter what. Six: Fair go. Seven: English.

That's quite a lot - and I reckon if you did a census of Australian values among Australians, quite a few of us would not pass any test.

Let me point you to the latest report from the Australian Human Rights Commission: "The struggle to be seen, the power in being heard". The way we treat each other is horrible.

There are interviews with members of the Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian, Arab and Israel communities in the wake of the October 7 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent retaliation by Israel. They give examples of shocking behaviours towards them. They feel unsupported and gaslit.

I asked the Race Discrimination Commissioner Sivaraman what he thought.

"It shows we still have a way to go to enshrine the values of equity, dignity and respect. In times of conflict and disturbance, we can let people down, those from migrant communities, people who are not white, people of different religions. They aren't protected."

What's most horrifying about Angus Taylor's new plans is his embrace of the worst of the US president Donald Trump. Taylor wants to import ICE to this country. No, not the drug, the horrific militia which tore families apart, imprisoned those who were doing absolutely nothing wrong and then, with impunity, murdered people who were actually standing up for values. That's what Taylor wants.

Do we want that? Is that standing up for individual rights? Or is that something else? A form of coercive control over people who don't look like Angus Taylor. Can we really expect people to share Australian values in the way they are imagined by Taylor and colleagues?

I asked Kate Darian-Smith, a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne and a historian of long-standing, whether she thought my folks were weirdos. Turns out, no.

"Your parents' view of Australian values is by no means unique!" Phew.

She says the idea of Australian values and of a national character more broadly is neither static nor monolithic. They evolve over time, depending on what else is going on. After the Brits got through colonising Australia, they left behind what Darian-Smith calls a "new white" society - but differentiated from Britain by a democratic spirit and an emphasis on egalitarianism. By the early 20th century, it was about Anzacs and ideas of a masculine "mateship".

She says those values have remained enduring. I mean, we recognise they are problematic (see the controversy around Ben Roberts-Smith) but we continue to invest in them.

And Darian-Smith points out the biggest clanger of all in the Coalition's claim that Australian Values should be core to Australia's immigration program - how are we giving migrants a fair go while also insisting that they adhere to the weird list of values - which many of us already ignore (including some in Taylor's own party).

We've welcomed so many over the years including my lovely parents, who would have failed on the English front and on the freedom and respect for individuals, such as their own children, to be extremely slack about homework.

On another note - and at a time when the Liberal Party was far less awful, at least 50,000 Vietnamese migrants were welcomed during Malcolm Fraser's tenure - and Fraser understood why multiculturalism mattered.

I feel like Taylor and his crew don't get it. Instead, they are all trying to be One Nation lite. I would love to set up a meeting between Taylor and Darian-Smith. She could tell him to his face: "New arrivals were brought into Australian society productively and successfully and Australian values were not an explicit part of their adjustment."

And I'm a testament to that.

Jenna Price is a regular columnist.

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