Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The first report on access and equity was delivered to parliament in April 1986, and so we have seen more than 20 years of governments from both sides of the House wanting to make sure that public services for our new settlers have been as comprehensive and as accessible as possible. In fact, as a result of generations of service deliverers and deep community concern, I believe Australia is rightly regarded as one of the pre-eminent nations in being able to maintain a diversity-rich culture where our new settlers are helped to have a seamless, smooth and as-fast-as-possible transition into a new life in our Australian society.

I commend the fact that this report continues in 2006-08—crossing over as it does both the previous coalition government’s work and that of this new government—as an attempt to make sure that new areas of new settler concern are dealt with. As our population ages, there has been a particular need identified in this report for aged care for many Australians whose first language is not English. This will need to take into account cultural, linguistic and religious diversity as we try to supply aged-care services.

In some cultures, family-caring responsibilities limit the opportunity for women to learn English and to participate fully in the workforce and the wider community. In the past, back in the fifties and sixties, men and women did not need to speak English to be able to engage in the workforce. They could spend an entire lifetime in a workplace where their home language, or perhaps the language of another new settler group, was predominant. They were not actively discriminated against in that workplace or disadvantaged in looking for work. It is very different in the 21st century, and so we are most concerned that women as well as men have access to effective English language learning as soon as they arrive in Australia. In that way they can participate not only in the economy but in the full range of opportunities our society offers in cultural participation—music, dance, recreation and sport—whether they live in a metropolitan area, close to a migrant resource centre, or in a remote rural or regional part of Australia.

Our humanitarian clients have an additional number of factors impacting on whether or not they have access to education. Often in their home country poverty, poor nutrition and trauma have meant that they have had limited education. Clearly, when they come to Australia, those services need to be very comprehensive and carefully targeted. One of the areas I am looking forward to seeing more government service provision in is ensuring that our new humanitarian and refugee settlers are located in rural and regional areas in the first instance, not that they migrate as a secondary movement after initially being put into places in capital cities. This follows from a trial in the Shepparton-Goulburn Valley area, where the Congolese were settled straight off the planes into a rural and regional community. That particular pilot has been hugely successful, and I call on this government to study the swiftness and comprehensiveness of the settlement of that particular African community into the broader Goulburn Valley society, and to see that this is a very good way for humanitarian refugee groups whose previous life experience has been not in cities but in rural and regional parts of their home country.

I am very pleased to offer bipartisan support for the Access and Equity report for 2006-08 and I commend it as important reading. I also look forward to different government services reflecting different times and an ongoing, comprehensive and properly resourced set of services to make sure that our multicultural and diverse society continues.

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