Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

Making a new home in a new country is not easy yet tens of thousands of people do this in Australia every year. I believe Australia can and should do more. I want to thank my fellow Labor members on the Joint Standing Committee on Migration—the deputy chair, the member for Calwell, and the member for Hindmarsh—and those government members who chose to participate at the level that they did. I want to thank the experts, the security agencies, the police and the law enforcement officials who gave evidence. I want to thank the bright young people who welcomed us into their schools and their communities and who told us about their lives and their journeys, how they had made Australia their home, and their experiences and the types of supports they received and they needed. I want to thank the secretariat for the marvellous work they do. I'm constantly amazed and impressed by the professionalism, efficiency and effectiveness of the secretariat—the people who work in this place.

Some of the members of this committee travelled overseas as part of a delegation—approved, of course, by the authorities in this place—to the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany. Each of these countries faced different challenges, and it is quite clear that they can learn more from us than we can learn from them. But, we included the ideas that we got from these countries' experiences in this report.

There are many recommendations in this report that the Labor members agreed to: recommendations 1 to 14. But there are those that we can't agree with. There are many great recommendations. For example, the recommendation about Community Hubs Australia and an expansion of that particular program. In my own electorate, we are getting five of them. I'm very happy, because we can see the importance around the country of a place where women, particularly, can come to safe locations to learn English. Often when they come to this country, because of the circumstances in the countries they come from, they don't have educational opportunities. English language is critical in their engagement with the community, not just for women but for men and children as well. English is also critical for employment prospects.

One of the great recommendations that we have here is about a neighbourhood migrant mothers outreach program that we saw in Germany.

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