Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I have the great privilege every single weekend of going to many multicultural functions as shadow minister for multicultural affairs. On Saturday, I had a Cardinia council citizenship function, where again I reminded all the new citizens of something. There were so many countries represented. There were people from 30 or 40 countries who wanted to become Australian citizens. It was a very proud day for them. The first thing I say to these citizens is that the language they speak as their mother tongue is the language they should speak to their children at home because they will pick up English at school.

I noticed something in this motion which I was very proud of previously, where $10 million was committed through the Community Languages Multicultural Grants Program. This stemmed from the report of the migration joint standing committee, which I actually chaired. At that time there was a limit of 510 hours for migrants to pick up English. The great news was that the cap was removed so that people of whatever age who come from overseas and need to learn English now get the opportunity to learn English. That's so important, in particular, when it comes to getting jobs—obviously, when an employer is looking at someone and it comes to safety regulations.

Something else that I was also very proud of was the program we had for women's cafes—women's friendship cafes. So many multicultural women would come together and meet at schools while dropping off the children. They would support each other with some very serious issues, such as when it comes to family violence, but they would also just get to know each other. It was a great initiative. Sadly, Labor and the Albanese government cut that funding program, believe it or not. I thought it was a fantastic program. Then, also in the 2022 budget, the Albanese government cut $50 million from the safer community funding program. This program was put in place after the awful atrocity of the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand. We made funding available to make places of worship safer. I was very proud to go to so many various community groups and see them able to put up more safety measures, whether those be closed-circuit TV cameras or security guards. The sad reality is that places of faith are targeted. To have that program in place gave parents more comfort when their children were going to school or to various community centres, and it was something we were very proud of. In 2023, Prime Minister Modi of India actually had to raise with Prime Minister Albanese why such an important funding program had been cut after incidents which happened in Hindu temples. Under pressure from foreign leaders like Prime Minister Modi, the Labor government put the funding back in place. I welcome that funding; it's so important to have that funding back in place.

Another one that has upset me greatly is the funding cut to high-risk youth when it comes to the safe community funding programs. I know that 133 various groups around the country, whether they be multicultural or others, were recipients who this year alone lost their funding. Many of these were in the Indigenous community, but there were many multicultural communities too. It's a crying shame that when this government came into power they cut this funding—why would they do that?

We have a very good Afghan community, and I acknowledge that they have all their amazing events coming up. They're celebrating some at the moment, and I acknowledge that it's Ramadan now and we've had Holi. But now is such a stressful time for the Afghan community because of their visas. It has taken the Albanese government and the home affairs ministers—especially the immigration minister—a long time to come back to families who are waiting desperately to find out what's happening. The sad reality is that women in particular are being targeted in Afghanistan. They're not allowed to get an education and they're not allowed to work. So I would ask the government, when they're trying to pat themselves on the back, to make sure they're doing something to help our wonderful Afghan community to get their visas approved much quicker.

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