10 September 1987
Mr Bisas, President,
my ministerial colleague, Clyde Holding,
Mr Peter Spyker,
Ladies and gentlemen,
At the outset I want to thank you for your invitation to address your 15th Annual General Meeting not just because it gives me an opportunity to congratulate you on your work over the last decade and a half, but also because I want to comment on the wider national context in which you, and the Federal Government, have performed our respective tasks.
1972 was a very good year, witnessing the birth of your Society and the election for the first time in 23 years of a Federal Labor Government a Government committed to setting right the wrongs and filling in the gaps in government activity which its conservative predecessors had allowed, by neglect or deliberate decision, to accumulate.
The Whitlam Government expunged the last traces of discrimination from the nation's migration policy demonstrating again the commitment and capacity of Labor Governments to implement an immigration program which serves the interests of individual migrants and of the nation as a whole.
It was of course the Chifley Labor Government which flung open the nation's doors after the war to new settle-rs from overseas. The impact of that decision on the Australian nation reverberated through the subsequent decades, as the nation steadily and progressively enriched itself with the new skills, new cultures, new languages, new ideas brought here by our new fellow citizens.
It was the Chifley Government's vision of a nation enriched in that way that inspired me forty years ago to join the Australian Labor Party. As Prime Minister of another Federal Labor Government I am proud that I have been able to continue and expand the Labor tradition of vision and fairness in building a truly multicultural Australia.
I want to pay tribute in particular to Mick Young, who has been without doubt one of the most popular and successful Ministers ever to hold responsibility for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.
Organisations such as yours have been important partners in the creation of a multicultural Australia, in which all Australians have equal access to the resources of this country.
The breadth of your organisation's activities are evidence of the many issues facing not only the Greek community, but other communities of a non-English speaking background.
My Government will launch two major initiatives which will significantly advance the development of our multicultural society into the next century.
The first of these will be the formation of an independent committee to advise the Government on future immigration policies.
We are committed to ensuring that our immigration policies reflect and serve the needs of the Australian community and economy. There is a constant need for Government to appraise the relevance of those policies and in doing so, to listen to the people who have an interest in or are affected by those policies.
Sometimes these interests may compete and it is up to government to find the right balance between them while remaining sensitive to the needs of all.
Many here tonight will know of family members overseas who wish to join their relatives in Australia. I would like here to reiterate my Government's commitment to the reunion of families.
At the same time we will continue to ensure that Australia's best economic interests are served through immigration policies which encourage people with special skills and knowledge to come to Australia.
These are the kinds of issues which the Government needs constantly to review, and which the committee will address in its report.
The composition of the committee that will undertake this task is about to be finalised and when it is, Mick Young will announce the names of its members and its terms of reference.
I can assure you the committee will consult widely in its work. Consultations will begin as soon as possible, and I expect the committee to report back to the Government by next March.
Let me make this request to you, and through you to all interested groups, that you take up the opportunity presented by this Review to participate directly, through submissions and discussions, in formulating its recommendations.
The second major initiative I want to refer to is the development of a National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia.
The National Agenda is being developed over the next two years in conjunction with the Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs, with support from the Office of Multicultural Affairs which has been set up in my Department.
The purpose of the Agenda is to develop the priorities with which we can translate our policy of multiculturalism into a series of concrete initiatives.
The proposal for such an Agenda has arisen from my desire, and that of the community, to see positive, identifiable and practical steps taken to meet the needs of all Australians living in a multicultural society.
Community-wide consultation for the Agenda will begin early next year, and the Government will I trust be able to release a White Paper detailing a 10-year National Agenda in March 1989.
The Agenda will suggest ways of promoting equity and access in both public and private sectors and identify means of effectively educating the community about multiculturalism.
In particular, the National Agenda will do a stocktake of our progress to date in implementing multicultural objectives in major policy areas such aq employment, language needs, education, overseas trade and community relations and will identify obstacles to the achievement of those objectives.
Multiculturalism is for all Australians and it is important to stress that the National Agenda is not about the provision of yet another ' shopping list'. It is about the development of comprehensive, forward-looking policies that reflect the social and economic implications of a multicultural society as it moves towards the Year 2000.
I hope that the Greek community, numbering more than half-a-million people and being one of the longest-established in Australia, will contribute to the development of the National Agenda.
In recent years, Greek immigration to Australia has taken place on a reduced scale, but the Greek community remains one of the largest and most important and dynamic ethnic communities in Australia.
By 2001, the number of elderly Australians born in Greece will make them the second largest group of non-English speaking ethnic aged people in Australia. It is currently estimated that some 30 per cent of the Greek community is now aged over 60.
This projection must have a significant impact on the welfare services required by the Greek community now and in the future, and on areas to be addressed in the National Agenda.
I know that the Australian Greek Welfare Society has recognised these trends and is building on the expertise it has already gained in the provision of services to the Greek community.
Your experience in this area will be vital in the future.
And your work in other fields child care, youth work and in the development of welfare structures for service delivery - is also making a valuable contribution to the enhancement of life for Greek Australians.
The establishment of your bilingual child care and youth w rk service was a first and has served as a model for other communities. And you were the first organisation to establish a group-work program for the Greek aged.
The Federal Government is pleased to have supported you in this work.
Of particular importance to you, the Government has greatly improved the availability and quality of care for the aged and disabled at home. we have nearly doubled funding for this purpose in real terms, and your Society has received a grant under the Home and Community Care program this year for an important education and information project.
We will also implement the National Policy on Languages. We are already committed to an integrated package of initiatives which double the on-arrival component of the ESL program; provide substantial funding for community languages; and tackle the problem of adult literacy.
The Government is also committed to maintaining sufficient levels of funding to general ESL programs in recognition of the special needs of people of a non-English speaking background.
The Greek community, through the work and commitment of the people in the community and organisations such as yours, has one of the highest bilingual rates of any community with most children learning the language of their parents. This is to be commended, and it sets a worthy example to other communities.
But I don't want to convey the impression that Australia's ethnic groups should only receive the attention of Government through specific programs directed solely at them.
Australians born overseas, and their families and descendants, depend for their prosperity on the overall economic health of the nation. In this they are no different from any other Australians.
And having referred at the outset to attitudes which prevailed in 1972, it is important to realise the profound economic changes which separate that time from us in 1987. Those changes have been apparent not only in the external economic environment but also in the attitudes we bring as a community to our domestic economic performance.
Australia has, due to no fault of its own, suffered a massive loss of income in the order of $ 9 billion following the collapse in the prices the world is willing to pay for our traditional commodity exports.
That loss has required us to practice unprecedented restraint both through our wage fixing systems and through our budgetary measures at Government level.
It has also forced home the need to develop more competitive export industries, and more productive work practices, so that we can, over time, break our reliance on the agricultural and mineral exports on which we have depended for so long.
These facts are as relevant to ethnic communities as they are to the wider community. They present a great challenge, and great opportunity, to all Australians, regardless of their ethnic origins.
Australia is meeting that challenge. We have taken the right decisions - hard decisions, some of them, but the right ones - and we are starting to reap the benefits of a healthier Australian economy.
Since the election of the Government in 1983, we have created 844,000 new jobs a rate of increase unparalleled in the Western industrialised world.
We have provided a better and fairer system of health insurance. Nearly two million Australians who previously had no health insurance cover have received coverage under Medicare. By using a health insurance levy which is related to income - the Medicare levy - Labor's health insurance system is fairer.
We have increased the standard rate of pension from 22.7 per cent of average weekly earnings to 24.4 per cent.
We have striven to ensure that more children stay on at school to complete Year 12. When we came to office only one-third of school students completed secondary education; now more than half do.
We are also determined to improve training opportunities and in the May Statement we doubled the amount of Commonwealth spending on training.
We are providing funds to State Governments so they can implement programs which will have a real impact on reducing public hospital waiting lists.
And we are about to implement a new Family Allowance Supplement which will direct significant amounts of resources to those families who are most in need and which will help us achieve our goal: that by 1990 no Australian child need live in poverty.
Australia's ethnic communities have derived benefit from these programs overall and to the extent that ethnic Austi. alians are among the most disadvantaged in the community they have been assisted by our determination to direct available welfare resources to those most in need.
Labor is committed to improving the delivery of services to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in our society. The aged, people with disabilities, the homeless, families under stress, and people with a non English-speaking background have all suffered from many years of policy neglect.
In the second term of my Government, we established a new Community Services portfolio with a charter to co-ordinate and improve services to all these groups.
As part of the restructuring of Government departments which followed our re-election in July, I decided to amalgamate the departments of Community Services and Health in part because amalgamation will help achieve this goal more efficiently.
We are determined to ensure that -Australians of ethnic origin achieve their entitlement to full access to the programs provided to the general community by Government.
All Australians, irrespective of their ethnic or religious backqrounds, their cultural heritage or their linguistic tradition, should be able to exercise their rights and obligations as full and equal members of the community.
In this sense multiculturalism is central to any commitment to social justice.
We will extend the access and equity strategy now administered by the Office of multicultural Affairs. All Commonwealth Departments and agencies will now be required to develop three-year plans of action to ensure that all Australians, irrespective of their ethnic origin, enjoy a ' fair go’' in access to Commonwealth programs and services.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Australia must continue to grow as a richly diverse but cohesive society in which every Australian, of whatever background, enjoys a fair go.
I would like to commend you for the work your Society has done over the past 15 years towards that goal.
Your organisation has been and is a leading light in Melbourne through your innovative and important work.
I am sure that together, the Federal Government and community organisations such as yours, will continue to work toward building a better Australia.