Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the 30th general conference of UNESCO's proclaimed annual observance of International Mother Language Day on 21 February, and I want to thank the member for Kingsford Smith for bringing this very important day to the attention of this parliament. This year's International Mother Language Day promotes linguistic diversity's contribution to sustainable development. By adopting this as the International Mother Language Day theme for 2018, UNESCO seeks to show that access to education for all is essential for producing sustainable development in the future.

It was three years ago that I moved a similar motion in this chamber, calling on the government to observe this very important day of 21 February, and I did so for a number of reasons that are important to me, my heritage and my community, and to my electorate of Calwell. I note that the number of languages spoken in Australia has since increased, especially in my electorate. In 2015, 418 different languages were spoken in Australia and, according to the 2016 census, 425 different languages—each language spoken by at least one person—are now spoken in Australia. Two hundred and sixty-four different languages are spoken in Victoria; that's more than half the national average. More than half of the state average, 148 different languages, are spoken in my electorate of Calwell.

The 2016 census also revealed that the top 10 languages in order of most spoken, other than English, in my electorate are Arabic, Turkish, Italian, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Greek, Vietnamese, Punjabi, Sinhalese and Urdu. In Victoria, 69.6 per cent of Chaldean speakers, along with 59.7 per cent of Assyrian speakers, 37.8 per cent of Turkish speakers and 19.8 per cent of Arabic speakers all live in my electorate of Calwell.

Language is one carrier and source of a person's ethnic and cultural identity. It transports across time and through generations to connect families and communities. Being able to speak your language is a fundamental way for our newly arrived migrants and refugees to settle and integrate into their new home. I know from my own experience and the experiences of my constituents that language plays an important part in maintaining cultural inheritance, therefore I can understand the integral role that mother language plays in preserving, for example, the histories and traditions of our Indigenous Australian communities.

Here I want to make mention of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, who are the Indigenous people in my seat of Calwell. Their Indigenous language is a vital link to their culture, their history and their identity. Unfortunately, the rate of people who can speak an Indigenous language is increasingly diminishing. In the most recent National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, the ABS estimated that 61.8 per cent of people who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander were not able to speak any of their Indigenous languages, and that only 10.5 per cent were actually able to speak one of those Indigenous languages. The culture and traditions of our Indigenous Australians are our collective treasure and our inheritance, and it is our duty to preserve them. I'm afraid to say that we've failed to do that in this country, and I believe that we must do better before they are well and truly extinct. That's why I'd like to join the member for Kingsford Smith in calling on the government to promote the mother language of our Indigenous people—so that important cultural knowledge and cultural expressions are not lost to us and to our broader multicultural community.

Not only this but, given that we live in such a global community, supporting and promoting multilingualism is important for our national growth and our development. Our society is the most diverse it has ever been, and, similarly, the need to communicate with people around the world is more pertinent and more relevant now than it has ever been. With this increased diversity and global connectedness, it is important that our citizens are exposed to a diversity of languages and encouraged to learn a second or a third language.

So I to call on the government to further support second-language instruction in Australian schools right across our country. Second-language instruction in schools helps to remove the prejudices and preconceptions our students may have of the cultural differences of their peers, and it gives all of our students access to the cultural resources of the broader community. There is evidence to suggest that multilingual education improves academic performance across many subject areas. Research on students who are taught multilingual programs at school suggest that learning a language is related to increases in academic results in mathematics, science, social studies and literacy. So it's clear that learning a different language will both aid our future leaders to successfully engage with the international community and foster strong relationships within our own Australian community.

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