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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-18 Daily Xml
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Multicultural Communities Council of South Australia

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:22): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises that the Multicultural Communities Council of South Australia has been supporting migrant communities and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds since it was established in 1995 but that its roots stretch back to the 1970s;

(b) acknowledges that MCCSA now represents 120 multicultural organisations and delivers a wide range of programs to increase the capacity of its member organisations and advocates for the needs and aspirations of CALD organisations, communities, and individuals;

(c) notes that MCCSA is the multicultural coordinating partner for the Department of Human Services’ Community Connections Program and supports people from new and emerging communities to increase their independence and build stronger social and community connections; and

(d) notes the significant positive impact that MCCSA has made towards building social cohesion and enhancing multiculturalism and interculturalism in South Australia.

It has been a journey and I want to recognise the individuals who provide so much support at board level and executive level of the council, beginning with their patron, the Hon. Hieu Van Le AC, former Governor of South Australia, a man who along with his wife, Lan—and their story is known by generations of South Australians—was somebody who could come here from Vietnam on a boat with nothing but a suitcase full of dreams, be welcomed in Darwin Harbour with a 'G'day mate,' and then become South Australia's Governor, Her Majesty's representative in South Australia. Continuing to give back to the country, as he does every day, one of his roles is as patron of the Multicultural Communities Council.

I recognise the Chairperson, Miriam Cocking; Deputy Chairperson, Dr Ian Harmstorf OAM; and Treasurer, Silvio Iadarola, one of the first members of the community and the Italian community to welcome me as a candidate for Morialta in 2008, as he welcomes everybody. I have no idea whether Silvio voted for me but, as he does with all political candidates, he is a very welcoming person. I thank Silvio for that on the record. I do not mean to undermine the significant efforts of Miriam and Ian by singling out Silvio, but there was a certain kindness that he did me for which I am very grateful.

Also on the board are Eduardo Donoso, Lenard Sciancalepore, Malgorzata Skalban OAM, Manju Khadka, Nasir Hussain, Patrizia Kadis and Rajendra Pandey—Raj is also a member of the South Australian Multicultural Commission—and Suren Edgar.

The team at the Multicultural Communities Council is led by one of my constituents, Helena Kyriazopoulos OAM. It was wonderful to see her honoured for her significant work over a number of years advancing multiculturalism in South Australia in the Australian honours lists in the last couple of years. I also recognise their other staff: Julie Hoare, Kristin Johansson, Vicky Arachi, Annie Barone, Florine Fernandes, Geoffrey Brown, George Gouzounis, Hanaa' Grave, Katherine Greer, Lena Gasparyan, Ling Giang, Luis Cohen, Maggie Asaad, Milan Andelkovic, Omar Ahmad, Perrin Abbas, Savry Ouk JP, Sharyn Mooney, Sisaleo Philavong, Somi Lindsay, Stefano Pratola, Ukash Ali Ahmed, Veronica Davila, Victoria Tairli and Xiaohui Liu, better known as Abby to many. I recognise all of their significant work.

This is a group of people who support communities in South Australia, a particularly valuable resource for communities with elements of vulnerability, whether that is new arrivals or communities, indeed, supporting more elderly South Australians or other South Australians that need that extra level of support. The services they run are significant, with more than a dozen different programs for a wide range of communities, filling niches where government might act but, indeed, where the Multicultural Communities Council has filled those niches—that NGO service being able to more readily and more quickly adapt to meet those needs—and supporting more than 100 community organisations around South Australia.

The needs of newer migrant communities often differ from more established communities, and the Multicultural Communities Council looks to be agile in identifying those needs, advocating to government but also suggesting and, in certain cases, providing and supporting in relation to those needs.

I want to commend the council for its work. Its foundations, as the motion said, started before its initial introduction in 1995. Its roots stretch back to the 1970s, a time when the nature of migration to South Australia and to Australia was changing dramatically. I just want to conclude with a couple of minutes reflecting on the way our multicultural society and immigration policy in Australia has changed since federation.

It is, of course, to our shame as a nation—although we were not necessarily the only country that did not have modern values such as we would identify as appropriate now, and we were not the only country to be doing this in 1901; but when we federated the White Australia policy was our formal immigration position. This was based on policies that were in provinces—our states—prior to this, as a result of Victorian miners being very, very discriminatory towards Chinese miners in the 1850s and Queensland policy settings relating to Pacific Island labourers in North Queensland.

So when we came together as a country in 1901, along with discrimination against Aboriginal South Australians there was also discrimination in our immigration policy against non-European settlers. In 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act included, for example, the dictation test that was in operation for more than five decades and is understood to be something of a stain on our character as a nation, certainly in the way that it was implemented to discriminate against non-European migrants. Sad to say, it was reinforced during the Second World War by Prime Minister Curtin who in many other ways was, of course, a very fine leader—but on this he was very wrong.

I put this history because I think our next prime minister, Prime Minister Menzies, was erroneously described—and assumed, I think, by many—to have instituted the White Australia policy. Indeed, while he did, of course, have values that were of his time in many ways, it was under the Menzies government that the White Australia policy started to be dismantled.

Indeed, as early as 1949, immigration minister Harold Holt, who plays a starring role in this chronology a little bit later, took the first steps towards the dismantling of the policy and towards the modern immigration program that we have now when he took 800 non-European refugees after the Second World War and also made it clear that Japanese war brides, as they were then known, were able to become part of Australia.

In 1957, the rules were changed again for non-Europeans with 15 years' residence to be given citizenship. That was a step, but we were still a long way from parity, given that five years was the time that European residents had to wait. Fortunately, in 1958 further steps were taken under then immigration minister Sir Alexander Downer, a predecessor of the Alexander Downer who served more recently as foreign minister. In that year, 1958, the act was changed. References to race were removed and the dictation test was finally abolished.

More work needed to be done and, indeed, it was later—closer to the Harold Holt government—when the update of the non-European policy was undertaken so that it was to be based on the suitability of settlers, and then formal abolition of the White Australia policy took place under the Holt government. Temporary residents were offered citizenship after five years, European or non-European alike.

Gough Whitlam took some further important steps in 1973 as Prime Minister. Time for residency was reduced from five years to three years. Rather than there just being no formal discrimination against non-European settlers, as was the abolition of the White Australia policy, Whitlam took that one step further and had the policy that there was a proactive non-discrimination requirement. Indeed, at that time we ratified some of our international treaties.

However, in practice, unfortunately the impact—and this was felt certainly by Vietnamese migrants and refugees to Australia—was that the overall immigration intake was lowered significantly, so in practice the numbers were going down despite those steps forward. That was addressed further under Malcolm Fraser between 1975 and 1978. We saw a significant rewrite of our immigration policy which has formed the basis of subsequent Labor and Liberal immigration policies over the decades since.

Through this time, there was a change in the way that Australia presented itself as a country. It was the work that was not just undertaken by prime ministers or immigration ministers who changed the law—and we can pat ourselves on the back all we like for changing the law to what it should have been in the first place—but I would like to pay tribute to those people who came to Australia with a suitcase full of dreams, or maybe a suitcase full of clothes, or whatever it might have been. People came to Australia in a range of different circumstances, whether they were fleeing war zones, seeking economic advancement, looking for a job opportunity, or indeed just looking to reconnect with family.

There are hundreds of different reasons that people have been coming to Australia in waves of migration. What they have in common is a desire to build better lives for themselves and their families. What they have in common is that they have individually, and collectively as communities, enhanced our country, enhanced Australia, made our country better, made our country stronger, and made our country and our state and our communities better to live in.

I am so pleased that my family will grow up in the multicultural Australia that we now cherish and must take every opportunity to seek to protect. I am so encouraged that this is a policy that has shared bipartisan support now for decades. Indeed, in South Australia our governments, successive governments, each government builds on the legacy of the last in supporting multicultural communities more effectively.

I look forward to the contribution these communities will continue to make, particularly supported by the Multicultural Communities Council of South Australia, who we are acknowledging in this motion. I commend the motion to the house.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:34): I rise to support the motion brought forward by the deputy opposition leader. The Multicultural Communities Council is an incredibly important association here in South Australia. They had their formation in the 1970s and had the name for quite some time since then, to now be an association with 120 members. They have been growing their numbers and have people and associations connected with them who arrived many generations ago as well as new and emerging communities.

I would like to thank Miriam Cocking, President; Dr Ian Harmstorf OAM; Helena Kyriazopoulos OAM, Chief Executive Officer; the MCCSA Board and their staff; and volunteers, for their ongoing commitment to empowering our multicultural communities across South Australia. One of the key things they do is build relationships and ensure we have very strong connections with our diverse communities.

Funding from the South Australian government comes in a block form as one of our core funded areas, but the majority of their funding comes from the federal government. Over many years, funding has supported operations, programs and initiatives. Looking at their most recent annual report, they are involved in many different things. In 2021-22, they had 36 programs and projects, 125 member organisations, 31 boards and committees, eight advocacy submissions, five research collaborations, and 798 hall and training rooms utilised.

This is one of the key things about their location in Gilbert Street, that the groups associated or connected with them or that have membership can also have access to those meeting and training rooms. They also had 207,000 online interactions, 259 partnerships and collaborations, and 140 volunteers. As we remember all too well, that was during our COVID-constricted times, but the diversity of the areas they are involved in is extensive.

Some of those programs include the multicultural youth Reconnect program. We know that sometimes there are generational issues and trauma people have experienced, and disconnections between grandparents, parents and children. The youth Reconnect program supports families to find common ground between those different generations.

They have a Carer Gateway program to support people in their caring roles, and social support groups particularly for people who have been here for a little bit longer than the new arrivals but who still want to find those areas of connection and have that community contact. Playgroups are another area catering for young parents, and the Community Visitors Scheme and the transport scheme attached to that are other ways of connecting communities. They have a lot of mentors who are volunteers and who speak a diversity of languages who go out and support them as well.

I was thrilled, just a few years ago, when they took their intercultural training, called CulturalQ, and put a lot more effort and time into setting that up to make it available to go out to different organisations and public and private companies to talk to them about cultural competency, to have what are sometimes quite difficult conversations, to have people open up. Often we see an unconscious bias, people not even realising that some of their actions or policies may not include everyone in their workplace.

They have a men's group as well, where a diversity of people, new arrivals and people who have been here for many generations come together. Of course they have a culturally and linguistically diverse Ageing Well Network. Those are just some of the programs that they have here.

I did want to talk a little bit more about a new program that is funded for MCCSA through the South Australian government, called the community boards and governance program. This enables MCCSA to provide tailored advice and case management, talking about the role of boards and governance.

Most of the associations are incorporated under the Associations Incorporation Act 1985. You can be incorporated. You sign up to it, but then what is expected of you as a board? It is about not only how you act as a board but how you lead, develop, support and advocate for your community. This was specifically some program funding in addition to that core funding. That additional $16 million that we have put into multicultural affairs over four years has enabled this program to go ahead. It was an election commitment, and I am so pleased that MCCSA is rolling this out.

When they are looking at this community, they want to talk to people about language and communication, so they provide training materials in multiple languages, if need be using interpreters and translation and utilising culturally appropriate communication strategies. Looking at cultural norms and practices, we know that there are differing values and practices related to governance, and it is important to understand and respect these cultural differences when delivering the training, with a focus on cultural sensitivity and inclusivity promoted throughout this government's programming.

Looking at trust and mistrust, building trust within the community is crucial for effective governance training. Often, people experience historical or systemic mistrust towards institutions and authorities and so they take their time to establish those relationships. We know that there are power dynamics with boards and committees, looking at cultural and social hierarchies and how they can influence this. Gender and diversity is an area that should be considered within governance training, as well as of course religious and spiritual considerations. Some communities have specific practices that impact their governance structure and decision-making.

That is why having this tailored advice and a case management way of supporting them is really important. In the past, when we have talked about governance programs, we have often done them in group settings, where we invite everyone in and talk to them about governance, but it is often hard for people to ask those individual questions. There might be a situation within their own group around people who are divisive, who have said, 'No, this is what you do and this is what you don't do.' They need to be able to ask those questions directly.

This program, which is new and, as I said, was an election commitment run by MCCSA, means that you will have these facilitators who will provide accessible and pragmatic learning experiences. These will be individualised training programs, with mentoring. There will be some guest speaker presentations as well. Participants are going to learn about the incorporations act and constitutions, compliance responsibilities, effective board administration and meeting management, having a conversation about the role of office bearers and who you are going to look for to take those roles as well.

They will also learn about best practices, policies and procedures, such as risk management and work health and safety, financial management, accountability and reporting, and of course grant applications. Often, communities are keen to go for either a Celebrate Together or an Expand Together grant, but of course you must acquit that grant according to the conditions. If your organisation does not acquit that grant, then you will be prevented from applying for further grants in the future. Often, it is that conversation or walking alongside a community when they apply for a grant and they acquit that grant that builds the strength and capacity for them to go on further.

We know that communication often needs to be enhanced between board members, organisations, government agencies and stakeholders. There are responsibilities for each and every one of the office bearers in an incorporated association. We need to make that clear. Managing community expectations is another issue. Any of us who have been on a board know that that can be difficult. Stakeholders who are not involved in the board often have very strong opinions on what the board should do.

Across the multicultural divide, of course, we do a lot of work with volunteers, engage with the broader community and also look at network opportunities. As we know, it is a membership-based organisation with 125 members, as I have said. How can we do some cross-understanding and cross-connections and find mentors, maybe from a different culture, more established, who have gone through some of these challenges before? As I said, we rise to support the motion. They do great work, and we are delighted to continue supporting MCCSA.

Motion carried.

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