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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-04-09 Daily Xml
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Multicultural Services Directory

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (15:30): My question is to the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. How is the Malinauskas government assisting newly arrived South Australians to connect with local services?

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (15:30): I thank the member for Torrens for her passion and her commitment to our migrant community. It has been happening for many years, her dedication to their sports facilities and attending events, and I thank her very much.

The Malinauskas Labor government is committed to making South Australia a more inclusive place to live, work and thrive. More than 25 per cent of South Australians were born overseas. We come from more than 200 different countries, speaking 180 languages. We know that the settlement journey can be challenging and there are varying needs for networks and support. That is why, upon coming to government, we committed to delivering a multicultural services directory. It allows migrants and refugees to tap into culturally and linguistically appropriate resources which will help them in their settlement journeys.

I particularly want to thank the Australian Refugee Association for coming on board to develop the web app. ARA, as it is well known, is one of the first ports of call for settlement here and has been here for many decades, reaching out to many newly arrived people here in South Australia. I was quite saddened to hear the recent announcement that Deb Stringer, their current CEO, is retiring. Since 2018, when she became head of ARA, Deb has seen the strengthening of their capacity to deliver thousands of settlement programs and services, and her involvement in the multicultural directory is a key example of this.

Users can search for information in more than 20 service categories, including health and wellbeing, women's services, employment, education and training, housing and youth. Dozens of organisations have already listed themselves on the directory, and we encourage more services to get on board over the coming months. For those of us in this house who know of services that have people who speak a multitude of languages, we encourage them to put themselves on the services. There is a great QR code which is easy to work through. If you have a pharmacy and a pharmacist who speaks a different language, that is something that is very helpful for new arrivals or more settled migrant communities. If you have a doctor in your region, that is similarly helpful advice.

We sometimes think that people will understand how to help themselves as easily as possible even if they have been here for a long time, but speaking a language and talking to someone who understands the challenge directly makes it so much easier. This directory will become a one-stop shop for essential services, training and community and social networks, which are crucial to the settlement journey.

We are very proud of strengthening networks and fostering services and organisations. A very detailed multicultural policy is one of the key things we came to government with. We put a multicultural lens on community language schools. It has been really exciting. We have more than 99 active schools here. We have developed hubs which have been going in a fantastic way. I was so thrilled to bring back the Multicultural Women's Leadership program, which was cut under the former government. We have a waiting list for people to do this leadership program at TAFE.

We also have the multicultural women's microbusiness campaign, which is done with Good Shepherd. Once again, there is a waiting list to do it in year 2 and year 3. We are walking alongside people who have different activities that they want to offer. They just need a little bit of support on the way. We have increased our multicultural grants, the Celebrate Together and Expand Together grants, as well.

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