PRIME INISTE
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING, MP
PRESENTATION OF NATIONAL MULTICULTURAL ADVISORY COUNCIL'S
REPORT, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA, 27 JUNE 1995
I am pleased to be here today to accept this report from the National
Multicultural Advisory Council and its Chairman, Mick Young.
It's particularly good to see Mick around these parts I've always thought he left
them much too early. But the talents he brought to politics his intelligence,
humour, his great love of his fellow Australians and his great rapport with them
suited him for this task, and I'm sure he has performed it superbly.
The 1989 National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia set the scene for the
Government's response to the changing composition of the Australian
population. If we are now able to say that our cultural diversity is one of our great national
successes and one of our great national assets we can also say that the 1989
Agenda is a document of considerable stature in our recent history.
Today's report marks another step along the way.
And it is important that we make progress that we pay more than lip service to
our cultural diversity.
I think sometimes we talk about multiculturalism as a mirror of our achievements
when really it should be seen as a mirror of the realities we have to face.
That is why, if multicultural ism is to continue to work for us, it has to continue to
evolve and adapt and, in communities, government and the bureaucracy, those
in positions of leadership have to keep their minds open and responsive.
The success of this multicultural society does Australians great credit; and, as
Volume 2 of this Reports makes clear, the achievements since the 1989 Agenda
was handed down have been very substantial ones.
But the future certainly cannot be taken for granted.
Multicultural programs must continue to evolve to meet disparate and changing
needs. We must keep pace with contemporary issues, seek out the benefits and
opportunities as they arise and maintain a watchful eye on prejudice and
intolerance. The architects and administrators of modern multicultural ism must resist the
tendency of ideas to ossify and habits of mind to take on the shape and
characteristics of ideology.
. Every step towards ideology will distort the liberal aims of multicultural ism.
Platitudes and jargon will stunt its growth.
It is not just in the number of programs that multiculturalism must grow it must
grow philosophically.
It must look for new directions and be alive to the way Australia is going.
That is the function of this Report to keep the process moving.
I note, for instance, that the Report is concerned to acknowledge more fully than
before the place of indigenous Australians in the arena of multicultural affairs,
and that it attempts * to deal with areas of common concern and policy overlap.
And I think it goes without saying that this Government entirely approves of this
development. An altogether different recent example of the capacity for new thinking has been
the development of strategies for " productive diversity". This requires us to see
beyond the needs of ethnic communities to the advantages contained in their
linguistic and cultural understanding.
These days the designers of our investment, trade and industry policies, and an
increasing number of business people, are conscious that this unique human
resource offers a competitive edge in dealing with the world.
At another level, as we approach the centenary of our nationhood and come to
grips with questions of our identity and our place in the world in the 21 st century,
multicultural policies must define themselves against our national interests and
ambitions. At the Global Diversity Conference in Sydney recently I proposed something
resembling a model of multicultural rights and responsibilities. None of these
mark in any way a departure from the fundamental multicultural principles laid
down in the 1989 Agenda.
The Australian Government continues to assert the right of all Australians to
express their individual cultural heritage and their right to equality of treatment
and opportunity.
But it also asserts that the first loyalty of all who make Australia their home must
be to Australia and that the tolerance on which multiculturalism is built must be
recognised as a universal principle of Australian democracy, and practised
universally.
As a practical expression of this ambition, we are keen for migrants to take up
citizenship we think it will build more national cohesion without diminishing at
all the liberal, tolerant multicultural qualities of Australia.
But in asking migrants to take up their democratic responsibilities we reaffirm our
own. We are very much aware that the best thing we can do for ethnic groups in
Australia is create an economy and society in which there is opportunity for
people of energy and ambition to succeed, to create, to build good lives for
themselves and their families.
At the same time, we have to maintain the kind of social safety net which will
give migrants and others the support they need when they are establishing
themselves and when things go wrong.
We are doing this through a social security system which is infinitely more
sophisticated and efficient than it was a decade ago even five years ago.
We are doing it through Medicare, employment education and training, housing
and community services.
These basic policies are not marked " multicultural" but on them, more than
anything else we do, a successful multicultural society depends.
We can, of course, develop them in accordance with the needs created by our
cultural diversity. And that is what we do. It is what access and equity is all
about. It is why we take those steps to eliminate the barriers which arise from different
languages, cultures and religions.
It is why we insist on such practical steps as translating materials, targeting non-
English speaking communities in information strategies, and the cross cultural
training of government staff.
These things really do help, because they really do address practical realities.
They are part of a government's responsibility in a culturally diverse society.
But cultural diversity is a matter for all Australians.
It falls on communities, schools and businesses on every one of us to practise
tolerance and garner the talents and ambitions of all who live here.
It will help, I think, if we recognise that we have reached a point where it can be
said that in these things we have a proud tradition to uphold.
Among other things this Report makes that clear. It is an update, a report on
progress and a signpost along the way which began with the immigration
program fifty years ago.
Some would say the tradition began long before that.
Whenever it began, the tradition describes the evolution of a uniquely tolerant
and culturally diverse democracy in Australia and the lesson is, we must keep
working at it.
That is why I am very glad to receive this report.
The Government will give serious consideration to all the recommendations.
I thank the Chairman, Mick Young, and the members of the National Multicultural
Advisory Council for their conscientiousness and the work they have done for
Australia.