South Australian Multicultural Bill

Third Reading

Adjourned debate on third reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (16:17): I would like to confirm our appreciation to the current commission, led by Mr Norman Schueler who, as I indicated, has traversed both the former commission under the previous government and now continues in the current commission. He leads a team of diverse, skilled and experienced members and I have identified some of their backgrounds.

I would like to point out that in relation to the current team—as I will reflect on the previous team—there is a significant amount of diversity, including representation from regional areas and several people who had refugee status when they came to South Australia. In recent years, looking at the commission's composition, there has been a lack of young people. I am advised, and I have no reason to doubt this, that there has been difficulty in attracting the interest of younger people to populate our multicultural communities here in the state, both in previous commissions and the current commission. I do not place any criticism on that.

I am advised there are periodically advertising and calls for interest from people who might undertake that work but, unfortunately, that has not been something readily taken up. One thing I agree with the opposition on in relation to that is that it is important that as best as possible diversity is reflected in members of the commission.

The last commission before the current one, which commenced on 1 July 2018, was chaired by the Hon. Grace Portolesi, who is well known to members of this house as being a former minister in the Labor government, and she served until she resigned on 16 February 2018, shortly before the last state election. I also acknowledge her service. She was the first female chair or presiding member of the commission in its 40-year history and, of course, she has given service to the parliament. I have said before and I maintain that I think the structure in relation to her undertaking another role as an employee of the government in the multicultural affairs role was inconsistent with good governance, but that in no way reflects on her as a chair of the commission.

Mr Schueler was the deputy and I have referred to his contribution. Ms Teresa Nowak is a Polish multilingual woman who has a very significant history in the Whyalla community, and her service is well known to that community and to church communities.

I also note Mr Peter Ppiros, who of course is probably known to many because he has been involved in the Riverland multicultural community and was also significant in publishing. I am not sure whether he was formally a journalist. I do not want to diminish his role, but he certainly had a leading role in relation to the publication of multicultural media. I think in the time I have known him he has lived in Adelaide but, in any event, he had a very significant connection with the Riverland community and, whilst he lived in Renmark for several years, he at least maintained that link.

Ms Sumeja Skaka, whose membership was apparently revoked by the minister on 29 December 2017, was born in Sarajevo. She had an active role in the Muslim community and, back in 2006, was Youth of the Year in the Australian Muslim Achievement Awards. Ms Miriam Silva, whose term expired on 30 June 2018, came to South Australia from England as a six year old. Her family had come from Guyana in South America and had considerable experience in the business world.

Gosia Skalban is probably also well known to many members. Her term expired on 30 June 2018. She was born in Poland. She came to Australia in 1968 and had significant employment with Domiciliary Care SA as a multicultural consultant—so certainly in a service area of importance to all communities but especially those who might have limited aged-care or disability services. She also had significant leadership roles, including being president of the Polish Women's Association in Adelaide.

We then have Dr Joseph Masika OAM. His term expired on 30 June 2018. He was a team leader in the statewide services directorate for Families SA. He has a Doctor of Medicine degree and other public health qualifications. He had some 30 years' experience in both the health and community service industries and was also very active in his role with the African Communities Council of South Australia and other leadership roles.

Ms Swee Ming (also known as Michelle) Dieu had a term on the previous commission until 30 June 2018. Ms Dieu is of Chinese Malaysian background. She migrated to Australia in 1962 as a skilled migrant. She has experience and qualifications from Flinders University and the University of Alberta and has made a very significant contribution, principally but not without other diverse interests, in the Chinese community here in South Australia.

The term of Major-General Vikram Madan VSM (retired) expired on 30 June 2018. The Major-General is probably well known to many. I am sure that he is well known to the member for Florey because she takes an active interest in veterans matters. He had a 40-year career with the Army as an infantry officer with the rather elite Gurkha Regiment, and has been significantly decorated by the President of India; so a very impressive history.

We then have Mr Angelo-Raffaele Fantasia, whose term expired on 30 June 2018. He was a very significant leader and president of the Coordinating Italian Committee and the Carnevale Italian Festival. He was involved with the Italian community generally and was very much involved in many religious festivals within the Italian community.

Ms Yu Chen’s term expired on 30 June 2018. She was a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide. Her research interests and specialties are in the discipline of entrepreneurship, particularly in Chinese immigrant entrepreneurship. She is an academic, obviously with a significant network of interests and leadership in the Chinese community.

Mr Hiep Nguyen's term expired on 30 June 2018. He was born in Vietnam in 1956 and has two adult children. He has a Master of Business Administration degree and a computer sciences and electrical engineering qualification from the University of Adelaide—again, a significant contribution professionally in engineering and information technology. He also has a significant leadership role in the Vietnamese community.

Finally, Mr Mabok Deng Marial’s term expired in 30 June 2018. He arrived as a refugee, I think, about 12 years ago. He was an accommodation officer at Anglicare SA’s Client Services at the time of his participation on the commission, and he made a significant contribution to African communities, particularly in leadership roles for the Sudanese community here in South Australia, which, relative to a number of the others I have referred to, was more recent in populating and complementing the multicultural communities that we have here in South Australia.

I recognise these people because they, too, have made a significant contribution. I am not going to go back over the whole 40 years, I promise you that, but I make the point that these people have provided their services in the task that was set by the legislation for the last 40 years. Although there are to be some proposed changes in the legislation before us, let us make it very clear that they had a very strong role in relation to advising whoever the Minister for Multicultural Affairs was at the time in promoting multiculturalism as an integral part of our state, working towards the continuation of an inclusive society and to increase awareness of the services available, to promote social harmony, to foster and support community development and to lead and manage multicultural initiatives in partnership with other organisations in the community.

They are the current obligations in relation to the functions of the commission under the current act, and I think they should be acknowledged for the contribution they have made. As it turned out, the board I have just referred to had concluded by essentially 30 June 2018 and, as the chair had also retired, the deputy, Mr Norman Schueler, signed off on that annual report. However, for nine months or thereabouts, it was the previous commission that had actually undertaken those functions.

It is fair to say that they did not only report in relation to the work done by the commission, and I would encourage people to look at that because, frankly, one of the concerning aspects that was revealed during the review of I think 53 or 54 personal submissions that were presented at community meetings was a very significant lack of knowledge as to the actual functions of the commission. That may be because any number of commissions have not gone out and spruiked their good work; I do not know.

Certainly, all of them I have seen in the time I have been in the parliament are very active in attending functions and things where they are visible, but they do a lot of other work, and that should not be underestimated. It is recorded in their annual reports, and I would urge members who are perhaps in the category of not fully appreciating the significance of their work to have a look at those annual reports.

Apart from the significant number of attendances at public functions that we all know about, they also attended the Governor's Multicultural Awards, which is an annual event. They continued to provide support to the Interpreting and Translating Centre during that year. On a number of occasions, they had a presence in directly meeting and fostering close relationships with ethnic communities, and they detail occasions when they met in that regard. They also attended a number of citizenship ceremonies and made contributions.

Mr Schueler, in concluding that annual report, recognises and pays tribute to the former chair, the Hon. Grace Portolesi, for the work she had contributed. I think it is fair to say that he was very glowing of her contribution in that regard. He also thanked other SAMEAC colleagues, whom I have acknowledged and who have since retired on 30 June. He thanked the former minister, the Hon. Zoe Bettison, for her 'energetic and unwavering support', so well done. He also acknowledged the Hon. Steven Marshall as the new minister for covering these matters and the Assistant Minister to the Premier, namely, the Hon. Jing Lee MLC.

The role of the commission is outlined in the annual report, and I will not go through all the detail on that. The particulars of 'building community capacity' are outlined and how there is a role in relation to a grants program, how that works and who makes the decisions on that. Again, I would urge people to have a look at that. There is also a whole chapter on promoting multiculturalism and all the things that were done during the year. Again, I will not go through them all, but there are a lot of them. They are not just attending a function or a festival. There are a lot of different events and receptions here in the parliament and on other occasions.

At page 24 is an access and equity report. It explains SAMEAC's involvement in a lot of activities to ensure that 'no person living in South Australia faces barriers to accessing information and services because of their CALD background'. I mention this, and it is important for members to have a look at it, because comment has been made about the need to require a continuation of requiring agencies—'administrative units' as I think they are defined under the act, and these are government departments—to comply with and provide feedback and information to the commission so that they may undertake their work. That provision is confirmed by the previous commission. The annual report states:

SAMEAC continued to liaise with the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment regarding workforce diversity and the information gathered through the annual 'State of the Sector Survey'—

and then goes to highlight aspects of that. The reason I mention this is that there is no comment here to say, 'We've had a problem with government departments or the public sector division and we need to have some extra powers,' or, 'We need to demand that there be extra detail in annual reports,' and the like. I think it is important that members look at what is being reported there. As I say, the translating service details are all there. There is some interesting data in there as well.

Very briefly, for the sake of completeness, I confirm that for the annual reports 2018-19 and 2019-20 all these types of projects were all repeated.

Time expired.

Bill read a third time and passed.