Will multiculturalism road map help boost ‘sense of belonging’ in Australia?

Ten of the recommendations were marked as high priority, including the offering of citizenship tests in other non-English languages, to recognise and preserve the cultural heritage of migrants and strengthen “a sense of belonging”, the report said.

The deterioration of this sense of belonging, amid rising discrimination and prejudice, prompted the commissioning of the review more than a year ago.

“I think the idea of allowing for more languages is a good thing. We actually don’t technically have a national language in Australia. We do have English, but we don’t actually pronounce that,” said Carlo Carli, chair of the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia.

“Realistically, our migration has never really been dependent on everyone being absolutely fluent in English.”

But that alone would not help migrants with the citizenship process or migrating into Australia, said Tharini Rouwette who runs Allies in Colour, a national independent body representing culturally and racially marginalised people in Australia.

Migrants face much bigger residency problems long before they reach the citizenship test and need more government support, not just migration agents, to advance towards citizenship, evidence compiled by Allies in Colour shows.

“It goes way back in their pathway to citizenship and this is where support needs to be provided, not at the end point [of citizenship],” Rouwette said. “Many migrants don’t understand their rights.”

Indeed, the top three themes in the 796 public submissions the review panel considered were the availability of language services such as interpretation and translation, inclusiveness of migrants in Australia and concerns over racism.

Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman welcomed the call in the review to acknowledge people’s experiences of discrimination, which sets up the first step towards breaking up systemic racism.

Another “high priority” recommendation for the establishment of a commission to provide leadership on multicultural issues, including holding opponents of human rights to account, was far more concrete than other recommendations, many of which were symbolic or repeated over the years, Andrew Jakubowicz, a sociologist and professor at the University of Technology Sydney, said in an analysis earlier this week.

Carli echoed his words, saying similar bodies in the past, such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs which once sat in the prime minister’s office but was dismantled during the Howard government, had been effective.

Such a body could assist in collecting data about migrants that would help Canberra make better decisions in multicultural affairs, Carli said.

But to be useful, the commission should have input from all parts of the government, from urban planning to transport, Rouwette said.

“You can’t have a body on multiculturalism that operates on its own,” she said. “If it doesn’t consider beyond the mainstream in all policies, in all different departments, then it’s going to fail multiculturalism.”

Such a commission should make an effort to consult and listen to the many private entrepreneurs and independent bodies working with migrants like Allies in Colour, Rouwette said.

“Creating a new commissioner role is a ‘very Western’ way of solving issues, which doesn’t apply to multicultural Australia,” she said.

“The government needs to find new methodologies. It keeps using the same advisory board, the same methods to solve multicultural issues.”

Indeed, more effort needed to be deployed so that the government could stop recycling goals, including that of harnessing the language talents of migrants, Carli said.

The new report has asked the government to prioritise a “revitalised” national language policy, including emphasising multilingual Australians’ contribution to the country’s economic prosperity.

“Canberra has jumped around a lot with language policies. How hard can it be to have a bilingual society? It’s not rocket science, most of the world is bilingual,” he said.

Australia’s language studies in school and universities have stagnated over the past three decades.

Once again, all eyes would be on the government on whether it had the will or commitment to accept and deliver the recommendations in the report, Carli added.

Indeed, the government would have to first front public reactions to the report as well as that of the opposition party before it could move forward, Jakubowicz said.