Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

, has tiptoed around the edges but he is yet to state unequivocally whether or not the word ‘multiculturalism’ will be dropped.

Last week the Labor Party made its position clear by stating that, if elected, it will establish an office of citizenship and an office of integration and multicultural affairs and that those two offices will fall under the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. By placing these two offices under the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Labor will ensure that national leadership and practical integration policy is provided across all areas of government—this way they have the best chance of success. Also, under Labor’s proposal citizenship is given the focus and priority that it must have, which can only be provided by including it within the Prime Minister’s responsibilities. Currently, when a school student googles ‘Australian citizenship’, they are directed to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Labor thinks that citizenship should be for all Australians, not just migrants. Therefore, under a Labor government, people would be directed to the Prime Minister’s website—a general website that covers all Australian citizens.

We also stated last week that we will conduct a review of the $153 million Adult Migrant English Program or AMEP. Labor says that such a program, which is a worthy program, must be reviewed since only 11 per cent of clients exit with functional English. Functional English is the standard that is regarded as essential for having a job in Australia, for working in Australia, yet only 11 per cent of people who start AMEP finish with functional English.

Integration has suffered through Howard government inaction. In contrast to Labor, who want to strengthen Australia’s integration policies, the Howard government has slashed funding to AMEP by almost $11 million; it has removed core funding to migrant resource centres which provide essential services in assistance and integration for migrants; it has downgraded the portfolio responsibility for citizenship and multicultural affairs to the level of a parliamentary secretary—an interesting move in itself coming just two months after the Cronulla riots—and now it appears the government wants to drop the word ‘multiculturalism’ altogether.

Multiculturalism is a part of life but, due to the failure of the government’s integration policies, some groups have been excluded from economic and social participation. Policy decisions which lead to such exclusion and alienation are dangerous. It is a serious concern because, by alienating communities that could assist with national security issues, the Howard government risks placing Australia in a dangerous position with regard to its own homeland security. The Labor Party believes that integration in a multicultural society is too important to play politics with. While the Howard government has weakened its policies, we want to strengthen them.

On top of the two previous announcements I have mentioned, Labor will develop programs which teach respect in schools and which promote all students to respect democratic values, including their civic and legal responsibilities. It will also develop an initiative to have buddy programs between schools to facilitate friendships between students from different denominations. In addition, Labor will place conditions on school funding to ensure that young Australians are not exposed to extremist and inflammatory material.

The question still remains: what are Andrew Robb and John Howard going to do? They have yet to make a clear statement, so perhaps other members of the coalition need to do so. A number of coalition members have been making statements opposed to multiculturalism, not putting a policy in place which deals with the fact that many people in our community are from different cultures and different societies. There is a necessity to deal with that in policy terms.

This week the Australian Bureau of Statistics released New South Wales regional figures which include place of birth and language spoken at home. If you look closely at these figures, which are based on local government boundaries, they show some large percentages of families who speak a language other than English at home living in many coalition electorates. I am sure that many of these families would like to know whether their coalition member of parliament supports Andrew Robb’s call to drop the term ‘multiculturalism’.

Some examples of these figures include Baulkham Hills, an area which has 20.5 per cent of families who speak languages other than English at home. The sitting members in that area include Philip Ruddock and Alan Cadman in their respective seats of Berowra and Mitchell. In Blacktown, 28.9 per cent of families speak a language other than English at home, and their member, the member for Greenway, is Mrs Louise Markus. Liverpool, which has 43.6 per cent of families who speak languages other than English, is represented in Hughes by Ms Danna Vale and in Macarthur by Mr Pat Farmer. Indeed, the seat of Bennelong, which is held by the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has 38.8 per cent of people who speak a language other than English at home. So clearly we have come too far to just turn a blind eye to the fact that our society is other than multicultural. We do need ways and policies to deal with that aspect of our society.

The Labor Party itself has made a clear statement. Integration is far too important to be ignored and policies must be strengthened. By placing an office of citizenship and an office of integration and multicultural affairs under Prime Minister and Cabinet we intend that this policy be implemented. It is just not sufficient to almost double the number of immigrants over the 10 years of the Howard government and then turn a blind eye to the fact that we are bringing in people of different cultures and different languages. We need strong policies to deal with this and ways to integrate immigrants into our society to ensure that they do participate in society rather than being marginalised.

The Howard government has a process called living in harmony, which is meant to ensure that there is tolerance and integration within our community. The parliamentary secretary announced a series of grants yesterday and over the past couple of weeks for funding for this. South Australian projects, for example—my own state—received $103,000 in funding. There was a total of 561 applications received for the Living In Harmony grants. Only a fraction of those applications were actually successful. The fact that so many groups are applying for this funding indicates that there is great need within the community for better understanding and greater tolerance within society.

The Howard government responds with piecemeal grants, small grants to individual groups, rather than a connected, cohesive policy. This is what Labor seeks to bring by placing citizenship and multicultural affairs within the office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to get all of the separate government departments to work together to achieve integration and harmony. The Liberal government prefers to pay lip-service through its Living in Harmony grants. Its Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister speak against multiculturalism and against various members of society. (Time expired)