Angus Taylor’s plan to tie citizenship to “Australian values” rely on vague definitions and risk embedding double standards, exclusion and anti-foreign sentiment.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor proposes to legislate the right to Australian citizenship based on subscription to “our values”. I have two problems with such talk of values. First, the promotion of national values usually hides anti-foreign feeling and even racism. Second, the very term “value” is so woolly and imprecise that it can be generally sprayed around to avoid being pinned down as to its actual meaning.

Talk of values has a long history. The Romans upheld Mos maiorum, usually translated as “the ancestral code”, referring to conservative morals and practices, famously speared by Prudentius in the fourth century as “the superstition of old grandpas”.

In contemporary times, I remember the superstition of Grandpa Lee Kuan Yew, which he called “Asian values”. Like the Romans, Lee preached the importance of respect for elders and authorities and decried young people’s desire for greater personal freedom, which he said reflected undue influence from the west. His ultimate aim was for the People’s Action Party to remain in power.

In the West, no country discusses values more than the United States. American values........

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