PRIME MINISTER, z~
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
LAUNCH OF THE NATIONAL AGENDA FOR A MULTICULTURAL AUSTRALIA
SYDNEY 26 JULY 1989
Sir James Gobbo,
Members of the Advisory Council
on Multicultural Affairs,
Sir William Keys,
Fellow Australians,
Rarely could it be more appropriate that we greet each
other, as we do today, with those words, ' Fellow
Australians'. For looking around this room I see the faces of Australia.
They are the faces of almost every continent, race,
religion, culture, language and society in our world. Yet
they are also every single one of them the faces of
Australia. Here today are:
Australians whose ancestors peopled this continent 2,000
generations ago;
Australians whose forebears arrived here two centuries
ago;
Australians whose grandparents and great grandparents
came here before the last war;
Australians whose parents sought a new life here after
the war;
Australians who joined us from overseas only in recent
years;
And the children of those newcomers who were born here
among us.
In all this diversity, one unifying theme is clear.
For all the differences in our places of birth, our styles
of clothes, our languages, our creeds, our colours, our
races, there is one fundamental characteristic, one utterly
vital value we share.
That is our commitment to Australia.
Our past may lie with a multitude of the nations of the
earth but our future lies unreservedly and proudly with
one nation, with Australia.
And it is our shared commitment to the institutions and
values of a democratic Australia and to the freedom of the
individual within the rule of law, our shared determination
to build a great future for our children in this nation,
that makes it so fitting that today we use those words,
' Fellow Australians'.
On this day of the launch of the National Agenda for a
Multicultural Australia, I want to make two essential points
that follow from this recognition of our shared commitment
to Australia.
First, it follows that all Australians are equally entitled
to enjoy the rights and carry the responsibilities of life
in this nation. We are all equally entitled to a fair go,
equally entitled to dignity and self-respect, entitled to
equal access to the services of Government.
Those goals are greatly advanced with the National Agenda we
launch today.
The second point that follows is that, within our shared
commitment to this nation, we must never be ashamed of our
diversity.
We should recognise diversity for what it is a great
source of new talents and ideas, a catalyst for social
dynamism, a true source of wealth in both its cultural and
economic senses.
Some people see diversity as a threat to our social
cohesion. Some indeed would seek to use diversity as a
means of setting Australian against Australian, and of
denying some Australians a fair go simply on the basis of
the colour of their skin or the country of their birth.
Let it be repeated and understood at the outset: for this
Government, for this Prime Minister, such views are
simply unacceptable.
Because it is not diversity that creates weakness or
discord. It is prejudice and intolerance that sow the seeds
of divisiveness.
And under this Government, the days of sanctioned prejudice
and official discrimination are over.
The days of the White Australia policy are behind us.
The policies of enforced conformity and assimilation will
live only in the history books where they belong.
Multiculturalism embodies this irrevocable transformation.
And let me say what a tragic loss it is that the
bipartisanship on this issue that had so positively and
constructively characterised Australian politics for so many
years no longer exists at the Federal level.
It remains a great source of sadness to me that the Federal
Opposition is still unwilling to commit itself openly,
honestly and unashamedly to a multicultural Australia, with
multicultural policies.
Today's Australia is a multicultural Australia. That is a
demographic fact. It requires a positive policy response
from all sides of politics.
For a very large part of our two hundred year history many
Australians thought of themselves as living in a
transplanted British society.
Our relationship with Britain defined our identity, our
loyalties and our place in the world.
And let us always remember with pride that the British
tradition gave us many of the enduring institutions and
values of our society our parliamentary democracy, our
legal system, our concepts of rights and freedoms, our
national language.
Even as late as 1947, some 90 per cent of the Australian
population was of Anglo-Celtic origin. This vast
preponderance translated easily into cultural and social
conformism. Our experience and tolerance of difference was
limited and we had practised a restrictive immigration
policy to keep it so, a policy that had presented
Australians to the world as an insulated, introverted
people, unwilling to play a proper part in the affairs of
the region or of the world.
Now we see Australia has changed. We have undergone a great
transformation. We opened up our windows and doors to the
world and we have been refreshed and immeasurably
strengthened by the inflow of new skills and new ideas, by
the millions of people who in the post-war years have built
a new life in this land.
The demographic measure of our multicultural identity is
that now less than half of the Australian population is of
pure Anglo-Celtic descent, and a quarter of the population
has no such ancestry. Australians today are drawn from some
140 countries around the world.
Among the new arrivals in Australia of course was the family
of the Premier of New South Wales. I pay tribute to him for
his stand on the issue of multiculturalism. on many issues
we are far apart but on our commitment to multiculturalism
we are as one.
What is important in the debate about multiculturalism today
is how we manage our cultural diversity how we ensure that
the next generation of Australians will inherit an Australia
that is confident in its individuality, enriched by its
diversity and proud of its accomplishments.
It was to develop the strategies and initiatives leading to
that long-term objective that more than 2 years ago, in
April 1987, 1 asked the Advisory Council on multicultural
Affairs to assist the Government in preparing a National
Agenda for a multicultural Australia.
The Council went about its work with vigour, sensitivity and
imagination, and was valuably assisted by the Office of
multicultural Affairs in my Department.
The Agenda that we launch today is the product of their
work. It comprises three elements.
First it clearly defines the policy of multiculturalism and
articulates the long-term goals and objectives that underpin
that policy.
Second it sets in train a series of enduring structural and
institutional changes.
And third, it includes a significant package of program
initiatives involving immediate commitments of some
million over three years, and more than $ 70 million in
total. Multiculturalism of course is only partly about enjoying and
enhancing our diverse cultural heritage. It is also about
social justice about ensuring equality of treatment and of
opportunity for all Australians. And it is about economic
efficiency about harnessing the skills and talents of all
Australians. So it follows that this Agenda, not least its spending
initiatives, represents an investment from which all
Australians, whatever their background, stand to benefit.
One of the principal achievements of the Agenda is that it
begins to remedy a grievous injustice that has been done to
many of the people who have come to Australia as migrants.
For a nation desperately seeking the new skills that
migrants can provide, we have been tragically wasteful in
squandering many of those skills, because of our failure to
recognise many legitimate and valuable qualifications gained
by migrants before they came to Australia.
Some estimates put the annual cost to Australia of this
failure adequately to tap our human resources at more than
$ 250 million.
That of course does not count the personal costs suffered by
those who arrived with skills, as tradespeople or as
professionals, yet who were unable to find the satisfaction
of suitable employment.
This Agenda establishes a National office of Overseas Skills
Recognition and initiates other reforms to ensure the
resources of our people are better used.
The Agenda also includes a package of measures to improve
Australia's language skills. Lack of English substantially
impairs our productivity in the workplace. The vital
process of award restructuring is diminished if lack of
English precludes workers from participating in new
retraining and career opportunities. Many injuries and
delays in the workplace can be attributed to the inability
of some to speak English.
We will be increasing and improving English language
teaching for adults and children, at a total cost of some
million over the next three years.
We will also give a firm commitment to continued support for
second language learning in our schools with no artificial
distinctions between community and economic languages. And
let me take this opportunity to say how important is the
complementary role of ethnic schools in our communities. I
am pleased to announce, that on the basis of current
enrolments, the Government will make a 10% increase in
existing per capita funding.
The Government has been very conscious, within broader.
budgetary constraints, of the need to make an overdue
investment in our human capital. This is very much an
economic agenda. Indeed more than half of the costs
associated with the Agenda are directed towards these two
initiatives the recognition of overseas qualifications,
and the improvement of English language tuition.
In addition to these economic considerations, we have also
been conscious of the social justice dimension of
multiculturalism. In the past many Australians have been denied their fair
entitlement to Government services because of barriers of
culture, language and race. It was in order to improve
access and ensure greater equity that my Government adopted
its access and equity strategy.
The National Agenda takes that process much further today,
by dramatically strengthening and reinforcing the
requirement for Commonwealth agencies to design their
policies and deliver their services in a way that reflects
the cultural diversity of contemporary Australia.
To that end there are specific measures directed towards the
aged, the young, women, Aboriginals, and people living in
rural and provincial areas, and concrete initiatives in the
areas of community services and health, consumer education
and the arts.
In framing the Agenda we have also been conscious of the
importance of retaining and enhancing harmonious community
-relat-i-ons.
A major Agenda initiative is a 3-year community relations
campaign, the most ambitious such campaign ever mounted in
Australia, that will tackle personal prejudice and
intolerant behaviour. It will commence next year, after the
Human Rights Commission has reported on its current inquiry
into racist violence.
The Special Broadcasting Service SBS also has a critical
role to play in reshaping and modernizing Australia's image
of itself. SBS television is a medium for all Australians,
reflecting and conveying the many faces and many ways of
being Australian.
Therefore, as part of the National Agenda, we have decided
to guarantee the security and integrity of SBS by giving it
its own legislation and by extending it to the Northern
Territory and non-metropolitan regions of Queensland,
Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Finally, the Government will consider the merits of
introducing a Multiculturalism Act, partly in order to
define both the ambit and limits of the policy. Such
legislation could also be used to reinforce the Government's
access and equity strategy, to establish a statutory body on
multicultural issues, to give formal recognition to English
as the national language, and to deal at the Commonwealth
level with the problem of racial vilification.
Any decision to proceed with such an Act will depend on the
outcome of community consultation about its desirability and
possible content. I would urge everyone here to contribute
to that process.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me say again how much the Government appreciates the
efforts of the Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs
under the able leadership of Sir James Gobbo and Mr George
Wojak. The Council has made an absolutely critical contribution to
the shape and content of the Agenda and of the initiatives I
have announced this morning.
In the light of this splendid work, I have this week decided
to extend the term of the current Advisory Council by a
further 12 months. I will be inviting all members of the
Council who so wish, to remain on the Council and to help in
the deliberations about the merits of a Multiculturalism
Act. I take particular pleasure in announcing a new member of the
Advisory Council today, a great Australian, and, as we have
heard today, one passionately committed to a multicultural
future. I speak of course of Sir William Keys.
I have also asked Sir William to chair the new National
Advisory Committee on Overseas Skills Recognition.
There can be no doubt that a man of Sir William's experience
in business, in public life and in community service, and
who is held in such high regard throughout Australian
society, will. perform these crucial tasks with diligence and
distinction. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are living through a period of
major social and economic change.
These changes are profound and they bring with them stresses
and tensions.
The monocultural Australia imagined by our parents'
generation has passed forever. It has been, and remains,
the challenge of our generation to achieve the transition to
a new, multicultural Australia. We are part way through
that process. We are all, in our way, contributing to it.
The National Agenda aims to see it to a conclusion.
Let me close by quoting the first of the goals proposed by
the Advisory Council in its definition of multiculturalism.
It could not be simpler or clearer: " All Australians should
have a commitment to Australia and share responsibility for
furthering our national interests."
If we hold fact to that principle, then our children and
grandchildren, the next generations, will have much for
which to thank us. They will inherit an Australia that is
more tolerant, more fair and more prosperous than any we
have known.