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Australian Ethnic Affairs Council, Australia as aMulticultural Society - Submission to theAustralian Population and Immigration Councilon the Green paper, Immigration Policies andAustralia’s Population, Canberra, AustralianGovernment Publishing Service, 1977, pp 1-2and 4-19.

Submission to:Australian Population andImmigration Council on theGreen Paper -

“Immigration Policies andAustralia's Population”

Australian Ethnic Affairs CouncilC/- Department of Immigrationand Ethnic Affairs,Canberra, A.C.T. 260015 September 1977

My dear Minister,

I have the honour to transmit with this letter asubmission of the Australian Ethnic AffairsCouncil on the Australian Population andImmigration Council's Green Paper ImmigrationPolicies and Australia's Population. We haveprepared the submission in response to yourdirective issued on the occasion of my Council'sfirst meeting in March 1977.

In preparing this submission on behalf of theCouncil I have had the benefit of assistance byand collaboration of Dr Jean Martin, SeniorFellow in Sociology at the Research School ofSocial Sciences of the Australian NationalUniversity. Dr Martin, a distinguished scholar inthe sociology of migration and a formerChairman of the Committee of Social Studies ofthe Australian Population and ImmigrationCouncil, served as consultant to my Council forthe purpose of evaluation of the Green Paper.

In order to meet the short deadline forsubmissions on the Green Paper, the AustralianEthnic Affairs Council resolved at its secondmeeting of June 6 to delegate the task ofpreparing the final draft of the submission to DrMartin and myself subject to it being vetted bythe Chairmen of the Council's threeCommittees. The Committees held initialdiscussions on the Green Paper on 7 June andsubsequently devoted one full meeting to thesubmission in late June or early July. Full reportsof these meetings were made available to DrMartin and myself and served as a basis of thepresent paper.

In preparing the submission we have not triedto summarise the diverse views of Councilmembers nor to present simply the matters onwhich there is agreement. Instead we havewritten the paper informed by the thinking ofCouncil members and our separate experiencein the study of and participation in ethnicaffairs. I have circulated a draft of thesubmission to the Chairmen of the Council'sfunctional Committees and asked them toexamine it critically with special reference to theactual proposals and recommendations in thethree areas embraced by the Committees:settlement programs, community consultationand ethnic media, and multicultural education.I am happy to say that as a result of thisprocedure the present paper not only has theauthority of the whole Council, but the specificendorsement of Committee Chairmen in itsentirety. It can therefore be regarded as theCouncil's initial formal response to the GreenPaper to be followed by further considerationand recommendations regarding the wide rangeof issues raised in the submission which fallunder our terms of reference.

Yours sincerely,

Jerzy Zubrzycki.

1Making Multicultural Australia Australia as a Multicultural Society

Australia as aMulticultural Society

The Australian Ethnic AffairsCouncil

ChairmanProfessor J. Zubrzycki, M.B.E.

MembersMr H.G. AckaouiMr L.H. ColbourneMrs E.M. Di StefanoMr M. DontschukAld. W. Jegorow, M.B.E.Mr E.I. KainuDr S. KaldorMrs T.H. KarabatsasMr U. LarobinaMr B.M. NoakesMr G. PapadopoulosMr G.N. PappasRev. G. Sakellariou, M.B.E.Mr E.G. SalomonMr G.V. ScomparinRabbi U. ThemalProfessor C.G. VelizMr A.M. VellaMrs H.E. VerolmeMr R.Y. WingMr E.A. WittsMr C.V. ZaccariottoMrs J. Zammit

Executive OfficerMr R.A. Henderson

Introduction

Our response to the Australian Population andImmigration Council's important Green Paper,Immigration Policies and Australia's Population,takes the form of an attempt to establishguidelines for immigration and settlementpolicies appropriate to a multicultural Australia.Directing our attention particularly to Chapter7 of the Green Paper, we show in very generalterms how these guidelines apply in the threeareas embraced by the committees of theAustralian Ethnic Affairs Council: settlement,community consultation and ethnic media, andeducation.

We have addressed only those issues over whichthe Commonwealth has or could have somemeasure of control through the direct provisionof services (e.g. social welfare), throughregulative legislation (e.g. anti-discriminationlegislation) or through the offer of incentives orsupport for particular lines of action (e.g. grantsfor innovative programs or research ineducation). Limited in this way, the discussioncovers only selected aspects of what amulticultural Australia means, but it is, wehope, focussed on questions which are already,or might properly become, the subject ofgovernment action.

Since there is no generally agreed uponterminology for use in this kind of discussion,some preliminary definitions are needed. Likemost other societies, Australia is composed of amajority population from a roughlyhomogeneous ethnic background and a numberof minority populations; the establishedinstitutions reflect and confirm the variousinterests, ways of life, values and world views ofthe majority. We use the term Anglo-Australianfor this majority population and culture, thoughrecognising of course that this term embracesclass, regional, religious and other kinds ofinternal differentiation. We describe as 'ethnic'the people who form the minority populationsof non-Anglo-Australian origin and theirinstitutions; apart from the Aborigines, theoverwhelming majority of ethnics in Australia

2Making Multicultural Austral ia Australia as a Multicultural Society

are migrants or the children of migrants. Wherelanguage differences between ethnics and Anglo-Australians are particularly relevant, we useterms like 'of non-English speaking origin' or'non-English speakers'. The term 'migrant'appears only where the fact of 'migrancy' ascompared with 'ethnicity' is significant for thematter under discussion.

Part AGuidelines

The Green Paper highlights the three key socialissues which confront Australia today as theoutcome of migration policies that in thirtyyears have changed our predominantly Anglo-Australian population into an ethnically diverseone. For brevity these issues can be called socialcohesion, equality and cultural identity. They areinterrelated, but the philosophies underpinningthem and the social policies they imply are notalways the same and may even be inconsistentwith one another.

Social cohesion

It is easier to say what social cohesion is notthan what it is. It is not the same ashomogeneity nor does it imply absence ofdissensus, confrontation and conflict, which areintegral to any democratic society. It does implyaccepted institutional arrangements for allocatingsocial resources and for dealing with conflict overwhat are social resources and over what the basisfor such allocation should be. As used here, theterm thus embraces the concept of the 'socialgood', the use of social resources towards thewell-being of the society as a whole rather thansectional groups within it. Although we do notdevelop the issue in this paper, we also wish toemphasise that questions of immigration policy(like many other questions) are embedded in amuch wider concept of social cohesion thanthis: namely, the 'social good' of humanity as awhole. From this point of view, Australia maybe a sectional group in a wider internationalsystem and the good of the wider system mayoverride the well-being of Australia consideredin isolation.

Equality

The crux of our argument is that Australia isalready a society of multiple cultural identities,or a multicultural society, and that equality canbest be promoted (perhaps can only bepromoted) through policies that harness it tocultural identity. Both are means and both areends: equality depends on and strengthensmulticulturalism, multiculturalism depends onand strengthens equality. They are 'ends',however, only in the sense that they are thetouchstones that guide our thinking andproposals, not in the sense that we see 'an equalsociety' or 'a multicultural society' as a tangiblefinal social condition.

We shall treat equality as equal access to socialresources. Equality in this sense means above allthat individuals are neither advantaged norprejudiced in their access to social resources bybelonging to some category of the populationthat is irrelevant to the resource in question.Thus equality is denied where skin colour stopsone person from getting a job or another fromrenting a house. It is also denied where sex,family wealth or place of residence gives onechild a better education than another.

As the examples given above illustrate, besidesethnic origin there are many other bases for thekind of categorising that undermines equality.And even in an ethnically diverse society, otherkinds of categorisation may be more importantthan ethnicity in determining the individual'saccess to social resources. Poor children fromdifferent ethnic backgrounds, for example, maybe more alike in their access to education thanchildren from the same background but indifferent economic circumstances. In the presentcontext, however, we shall concentrate oncategorisation by ethnic origin.

Cultural identity

Cultural identity is the sense of belonging andattachment to a particular way of livingassociated with the historical experience of aparticular group of people. Multiculturalismexists where one society embraces groups of


people with different cultural identities.

There are many kinds of multiculturalism andsome are grossly incompatible with Australia'spolitical and social system. In a simplifiedscheme we can say that multiculturalismdevelops by three principal processes:

(1) Cultural stratification. Socioeconomicstratification coincides with ethnicstratification to produce a hierarchy ofcultural layers. Slave societies are theobvious and extreme example.

(2) Differentiation by cultural regions.Each geographical region has its owndistinct culture: Switzerland is anexample. (Regional differentiation mayalso be associated with stratification, asin Canada).

(3) Differentiation by culturalcommunities. Ethnic communities arethe carriers of different cultures, butthese communities do not formdistinct regions nor distinctsocioeconomic strata. Australiansociety is multicultural in this sense.

In societies in which processes (1) and/or (2)predominate, different cultures are likely to beembodied in clearly distinct institutions. Eachstratum or region is likely to have its owneconomic, religious and political institutions, forexample, even though each must necessarilyshare in some common institutions if the societyis to operate as a cohesive state.

Where process (3) is paramount, cultures maybe institutionalised to very different degrees andin many different ways.

(1) Culture equals folk art. Multiculturalimplies nothing more than thedevelopment (or often only thepreservation) of the 'pretty' ethnictraditions - dancing, music, craft - withlanguage and literature sometimesincluded, more often not. This is theonly form of multiculturalism tolerated

in Australia in the fifties and sixtiesand is, we believe, still the only safekind in the eyes of many Australians.But ethnics often see this concept ofmulticulturalism as degrading anddehumanising.

(2) Cultural differentiation occurs largelyin the private, invisible world of thefamily and personal relations. People ofthe same ethnic background marry andestablish homes where they express andlive out of their common ways andvalues, but to the extent that theyparticipate in wider economic, religiousor political institutions (which theymay do in different degrees) they sharethe same institutions as everyone else.This kind of multiculturalism hasalways existed in Australia, but hasbecome pervasive with the diversity ofpeoples who have migrated here in thepast thirty years. By definition, thepredominant Anglo-Australian sectionof the population is largely unawarethat this is so, but inter-marriage andcontacts made at work and sociallyspread some measure of awareness. In asociety like ours with a strong traditionof respect for the privacy of theindividual, cultural differences of thiskind can persist over generations, withlittle organised effort directed to thatend, but simply as the result of peopleliving in the way that feels right,natural and comfortable to them.

(3) Cultural differentiation involves greateror lesser degrees of institutionalisation.That is, distinct cultural ways andvalues are embodied in institutionssuch as the church, welfare bodies,sports groups and ethnic schools. Thiskind of multiculturalism coincideswith the institutionalisation that occurswith cultural stratification and regionaldifferentiation, described above. Itinvolves structural pluralism, that is,the existence of ethnic groups withcontinuity and some measure of

4Making Multicultural Austral ia Australia as a Multicultural Society

autonomy. In our view, a major aim ofgovernment policy in the 1950s and1960s was to ensure that this kind ofmulticulturalism did not develop inAustralia and many Australians stillbelieve that the ethnic communitieswhich it implies are a divisive force inthe community and a threat tonational cohesion. In their view ethniccommunities are ghettoes, and they seeno alternative to a common system ofinstitutions for everyone, on the onehand, and destructive racial-ethnicconflict, on the other. In reality there isa large measure of ethnicinstitutionalisation in Australia (e.g.newspapers, churches, schools,kindergartens, aged persons homes),but there is much variation from oneethnic group to another. Size is not thedecisive factor, since some small groupslike the Latvians have a highlyorganised community life, while thelargest group, the Italians, are far lessinstitutionalised than the secondlargest, the Greeks.

Ethnic communities may exercise variousdegrees of control over their owninstitutionalisation, but the opportunities orencouragement they get are also the outcome ofpolicies adopted by the established institutions.In simplified form, three kinds of policy arepossible:

(1) Established institutions may adhere toa mode of organisation that denies therelevance of, or even the existence of,ethnic communities and thereforeprovides for the participation ofethnics either not at all, or only asindividuals.

(2) Established institutions may be soorganised that ethnically based groupsare included among the units of whichthey are composed. The structure ofthe Catholic church in the UnitedStates, for example, provides for bothterritorial and national (i.e. ethnic)

parishes.

(3) Established institutions may functionor operate through ethniccommunities, thus stimulating thosecommunities to becomeinstitutionalised. The Grants toCommunity Agencies scheme,introduced by the Commonwealth in1968 to enable community agencies toemploy social workers to assist migrantclients, has had the effect ofencouraging ethnic groups to organisethemselves in order to be eligible forsupport under the scheme.

There is no necessary connection between typeof multiculturalism and the way in which, orthe degree to which, ethnic minorities haveaccess to decision making and political power,although some types of multiculturalism areincompatible with some modes of politicalaccess. Three modes may be distinguished:

(1) Ethnicity is irrelevant to politicalaccess. The individual exercisespolitical power through voting andthrough his membership of politicalparties or established institutions, liketrade unions or professionalassociations, which cross-cut ethnicboundaries. This has always been thepreferred approach in Australia, but isnow challenged by some ethnicminorities on the grounds that it hasresulted in the neglect of their interestsand has thus increased inequality anddenied cultural identity.

(2) Ethnic communities act as pressuregroups, but do not, as such, seek toexercise political functions. They taketheir place alongside a variety of otherpressure groups and there isoverlapping membership betweenethnic and other groups. From time totime ethnic groups in Australia havesought to exercise this functionconcerning particular issues (e.g. in the1950s in particular, Eastern European


groups lent their weight to support astrong anti-communist line bycommunity and government), but it isonly in the past five years or so thatsome have begun to operate asmultipurpose pressure groups insupport of a wide range of ethnicinterests. To be more effective theyhave followed familiar pressure groupstrategies and combined their forces ininter-ethnic bodies such as the EthnicCommunities Councils.

(3) Out of ethnic communities are formedthe units (or some of the units) whichcompose the political structure. In theextreme case political parties (orpolitical sectors in a one-party system)represent particular ethnic interests.This is generally regarded as dangerousand alien to the Australian politicalsystem, although from time to timeethnic groups, particularly theAborigines, claim that this is the onlyway their interests can be adequatelyrepresented.

Conclusion

In Australia at the present time differentconcepts of multiculturalism jostle for attentionand different practices vie for resources. Butacceptable concepts and practices fall within afairly clearly definable range and there are someapproaches, as we have indicated above, that areso alien that no-one regards them as a seriouspossibility. These unacceptable alternatives -which Australians see embodied in thedestructive conflicts of Northern Ireland and theMiddle East, for example - are importantbecause they establish the limits of whatAustralians do and do not want.

Multiculturalism in Australia is thus notmonolithic, but contains the seeds of manydifferent kinds of future development. Whethergovernment policy takes account of thissituation or not, government decisions will havethe effect of encouraging some developmentsand discouraging others. We strongly urge that, in

all matters connected with immigration policy,migrant settlement and ethnic affairs, theimplications which any given policy has forequality and multiculturalism should be taken asseriously as implications for the economy. Thisimplies the need for over-all guidelines whichincorporate these considerations, and in termsof which particular issues and questions can bedealt with.

It is important, however, that we should notgive the impression that the relation betweenequality, cultural identity and social cohesion isa simple matter. On the contrary, decisionsabout policies and programs involve acontinuous process of weighing one of thesevalues against another and assessing how thepursuit of one promotes or jeopardises thepursuit of another. The experience of the UnitedStates has much to tell us, in particular, aboutthe way in which a multicultural society theindividual, though successful in socioeconomicterms, may become trapped in his particularethnic community if bridges into the dominantsociety are lacking, and how opportunities forsocial and political participation in the largersociety may accordingly be denied him.

Part BThe Application of theGuidelines

Settlement

This very broad heading covers a range ofgovernment activities and non-governmentactivities which government supports orregulates in some way. The substantial amountof information available on settlement policiesand processes leads us to the following basicconclusions, which can do no more than suggesta framework for considering this complexquestion.

(i) The present situation.Settlement procedures are changing in thedirection of promoting equality, but theycontinue to subvert egalitarian processes in twomain ways:


(a) Language. Non-English speakersremain at a disadvantage in that theiraccess to social resources is restricted byignorance that services exist and by thefailure of services to communicateeffectively with them. Thesedisadvantages occur not only inrelation to government services, butalso in the workplace, where, on theone hand, mono-lingualism commonlyundermines the safety andparticipation of ethnic workers, butwhere, on the other, support forEnglish language teaching has beenminimal.

(b) Employment. Both because of a lack ofthe kinds of jobs appropriate to amulticultural society (e.g. interpreters)and because of non-recognition ofoverseas qualifications and poorfacilities for transforming overseas intolocal qualifications, migrants -particularly from non-English speakingcountries - are in a disadvantagedposition in terms of our equalityyardstick. That is, considerations thatare not intrinsic to the job in hand butare the concomitants of migrant/non-English speaking status interfere withthe individual's access to employment.

In terms of cultural identity, the present ethnicconsciousness is an attempt to redress theimbalance of past policies, which gave, at best,token recognition to the existence of ethniccommunities and their claims to be heard.

In the attempt to safeguard social cohesion, earlypost-war policies tried to prevent thedevelopment of ethnic communities and morerecent policies have underplayed the structuralimplications of cultural pluralism. Policies ofthis kind are consistent with the aims andthinking of a number of ethnic groups: theyappear to have given some groups all the leewayneeded for the minimal degree ofinstitutionalisation they wanted, while leavingthem free at the same time to sustaincommunities based on personal networks and

informal groups. In other cases, however, socialcohesion has been undermined by the veryprocesses that have been aimed at preserving it;that is, in some communities the non-recognition of ethnic groups in the settlementprocess has been a cause for silent resentment orhas been advanced to justify aggressive claimsfor ethnic rights. Social cohesion is alsoundermined by inefficiencies and frustrationsthat come from the failure of governmentinstitutions to inform themselves about orrespond to cultural and linguistic differences inthe population and further by the waste oftalent which this failure entails.

(ii) Proposals for policy.The major considerations to be taken intoaccount in settlement policy are, we believe,these. Government institutions and servicesshould expand their multilingual capacity anddevelop more differentiated posts (the 'culturalinterpreters' currently being trained by theHealth Commission of New South Wales are anexample) so that people of non-English speakingbackground can gain more effective access to theestablished institutions which are intended foreverybody. It is of major importance that thisexpansion should go on concurrently with theexpansion of services specifically designed forpeople of non-English speaking background(e.g. the Telephone Interpreter Service) andconcurrently also with the more systematicincorporation of ethnic communities and mediainto the settlement process. These three paralleldevelopments need to be seen as interdependentparts of the one process. All three are needed toensure that the individual has options, and willfind his way to the resources he needs by oneroute if not by another, and to ensure also thatservices function flexibly as well as efficiently.

Education of Adults of Non-English-SpeakingOrigin

(i) The present situation.Despite the programs for teaching English toadult migrants that have been in existence forthirty years, there is clear evidence that:

(a) Large numbers of migrants have been


unable or unwilling to learn Englishthrough these programs.

(b) As a result, the community contains asubstantial population of adults whodo not know English, or who onlyknow enough English to cope with themost obvious routines of everyday life,and who are neither trying norexpecting to learn more.

(c) Lack of knowledge of Englishdisadvantages migrants in theworkplace, whatever their occupationalskills and experience, and deprives theAustralian economy of the potentialcontribution of migrant workers.

In terms of our equality yardstick,egalitarian processes are undermined tothe extent that the non-Englishspeaking migrant's access to work andsocial recourses is adversely affected bya consideration - knowledge of English- that is not intrinsic to the job to bedone or to the service required.

In terms of our yardstick of culturalidentity, the concentration of people ofcertain ethnic origins in lowsocioeconomic strata - which isassociated with lack of knowledge ofEnglish - devalues and stigmatises thatethnic community in the eyes of thelarger society and threatens the identityand self-esteem of its members.

In terms of our yardstick of socialcohesion, the economy is deprived offull access to the migrant's skills andexperience, and the devaluation ofgroups of non-English speaking lowstatus workers is a source of socialtension.

(ii) Proposals for policy.To bring policy on the education of adults ofnon English speaking origin closer to ourguidelines, we propose:

(a) A substantial increase in the availabilityof part-time and full-time courses forboth residents and new arrivals.

(b) A substantial increase in financialincentives to non-English speakingadults to attend full-time courses. Thepresent high rate of unemploymentamong migrants, particularly women,could be turned to some advantage ifthe rate of allowance paid to studentsattending courses did not place themat a disadvantage compared withrecipients of unemployment benefit.

(c) Employers be given financial incentivesto encourage employees to take leave toattend full-time courses or to attendpart-time courses while inemployment.

(d) The methodology and techniques ofteaching English to adult migrants bereviewed with the object of makingthem more effective in retainingstudents and in developing languageproficiency.

(e) Methods of communicatinginformation about English courses bereviewed with the object of recruitingmore students and reaching groups,such as housewives, who make least useof the courses available.

Education of Children

The multicultural nature of Australian societyhas implications for education that go farbeyond the concept of child migrant education,as embodied in the Child Migrant EducationProgram inaugurated by the Commonwealth in1970, which was concerned solely with Englishclasses for linguistically 'disadvantaged' childrenof non-English speaking background. The basicimplication - which we fully endorse - is thatpolicies and programs concerned with educationfor a multicultural society apply to all children,not just children of non-English speakingbackground, and have ramifications throughout


the curriculum.

(i) The present situation.Although there is now a very considerable bodyof writing on the education of children of non-English speaking origin in Australia,information on the school performance or evenon the acquisition of basic skills of differentethnic groups is fragmentary and contradictory,methods of testing the abilities of children withlittle or no English competence have not beendeveloped, and there is a lack of hard evidenceon the association between the child'sachievements and his sense of cultural identity(see Nicoll, 1977; Martin and Willcock, 1976).The weight of evidence, however, suggests thatlarge numbers of children from non-Englishspeaking background under-achieve at schooland leave school without the knowledge ofEnglish or other basic skills necessary for tertiarytraining. Without making unwarrantedassumptions about the relation between schoolachievement and subsequent occupation orsocioeconomic status, we can say that, in termsof our yardstick of equality, children are beingdisadvantaged for reasons that intrinsically havenothing to do with their capacity to achieve atschool (although in time, of course, repeatedfailure and frustration may undermine thatcapacity).

While, as indicated above, we know little aboutthe association between the child's achievementsand his sense of cultural identity, there isunequivocal evidence that the great majority ofchildren of non-English speaking origin find nosupport for their ethnic identity in school, andare in fact more likely to suffer because of it,and have no opportunity to use or develop thelanguage skills and knowledge that come fromtheir particular ethnic background. Althoughthis situation is slowly changing, and willchange more quickly in the next few years, if theSchools Commissions' guidelines are followedthrough, it is still the situation of most childrenof non-English speaking origin for most of theirschool years (See Report on the Teaching ofMigrant Languages in Schools, 1976).

Current criticism that the Child Migrant

Education Program has been over assimilationistin its concentration only on English teaching(and remains so despite the transfer of the mainprovisions of the program to the control of theSchools Commission in 1976) suggests a linkbetween the issues of equality and cultural identityin child education. The child of non-Englishspeaking background is handicapped in schoolachievement because (if for no other reason) heis required to learn the basic skills of readingand writing in English rather than in his mothertongue. According to this argument, bothequality and cultural identity are served bybilingual education for children who enterprimary school fluent in some language otherthan English (we use the phrase 'fluent in somelanguage other than English' to emphasise thepositive value placed on the language ability thatthe child has acquired, in preference to 'withlittle or no knowledge of English', which defineshim as deficient). In terms of our yardstick ofsocial cohesion, the policy and practice thatpredominated until recently, and are stillinfluential, have resulted in a waste of abilityamong children of non-English speakingbackground and have at worst encouraged, andat best done nothing to ameliorate, tensionsamong such children, and between them andAnglo-Australians, and tensions between thesechildren and their parents.

(ii) Proposals for policy.To bring the education of children of non-English speaking background closer to ourguidelines, we put forward the followingproposals. These proposals are not based on thenaive assumption that educational reform willproduce an egalitarian society; they representsimply the minimal response that seems to uscompatible with the value of equality, on theone hand, and cultural identity, on the other. Inso far as they are proposals for action by schools,they are based on the assumption that schoolshave an increasing degree of autonomy and arenot to be 'directed' to do this or that.

(a) The expansion of intensive Englishlanguage centres where newly arrivedstudents can study English full-timebefore entering school, or which


students already in school can elect toattend during vacations or by takingtime out from school.

(b) The review of Teaching of English as aSecond Language teaching theories andmethods, with the aim of reintegratingstudents and teachers into the schoolsystem and providing more effectiveEnglish teaching and continuousevaluation of students' experience andperformance.

(c) Schools (operating individually or inconjunction with other schools) begiven incentives to develop bilingualeducation for students who enter theschool system fluent only in a languageother than English.

(d) Schools (individually or in conjunctionwith others) be given incentives todevelop community languageeducation for children of non-Englishspeaking origin who wish to become orremain fluent in their mother tongueand for children of English speakingorigin who wish to learn anotherlanguage as a community language inits own right or as preparation for lateracademic study of that language.

(e) Schools be given incentives to developethnic studies programs and to infusethe curriculum in general with thereality of the pluralist nature ofAustralian society, with the object bothof enhancing the self-esteem ofstudents of ethnic origin and giving allchildren a more authentic view of thenature of the society than the presentmono-cultural education provides. It isimportant to note the interdependenceof these two processes: the sense ofidentity of ethnic children will bedefensive and inward-looking unlessother children accept the validity ofethnic cultures and identities.

(f ) Ethnic schools be given incentives to

operate at a standard that will allowthem to contribute effectively to thekind of multicultural educationprogram outlined in the paragraphabove.

Two further considerations flow from these firstsix proposals:

(g) Institutions responsible for teachertraining and the in-service education ofteachers be given incentives to recruitteachers of non-English speakingbackground and to train all teachers towork in a multicultural andmultilingual education system impliedby the acceptance of the five proposalsabove.

(h) Materials development by the mainnational materials producing bodies,the Curriculum Development Centreand the Language Teaching Branch ofthe Commonwealth Department ofEducation, be reviewed to bring theminto line with the above proposals andwith what is actually happening inschools, where grassroots materials arebeing produced and used and wherethe needs of the classroom teacherfaced with students who know little orno English (not the English as aSecond Language teacher) are probablythe most urgent.

Community Consultation and Ethnic Media

With the exception of the Final Report of theCommittee on Community Relations, presentedin 1975, attempts to examine questions ofcommunity consultation and ethnic media arefragmented and ill-developed. There appear tous, therefore, at this stage, to be no grounds forgoing beyond the comprehensive study made bythat Committee and we will limit ourselves tosummarising the way in which the presentsituation measures up against our guidelines andindicating the areas in which action is mosturgently needed.

1 0Making Multicultural Australia Australia as a Multicultural Society

(i) The present situation.Although we would not assert the converse ofthe Green Paper's claim that 'Relationshipswithin Australian society between the variousethnic groups have been mostly positive andhealthy' (1977: 54), we believe that it would bemore accurate to say that harmony has beenpreserved largely because ethnic communitieshave kept to themselves. Ethnic groups andinstitutions, such as the ethnic press, have notbeen systematically drawn into the process ofcommunity consultation and decision making.Although this situation is changing, the lessarticulate and forceful groups are still ignored,and inequalities between groups are probablyincreasing. In general the cultural identity ofethnic groups has been unconfirmed rather thandirectly attacked.

Social cohesion has suffered in various ways.Ethnic groups have been alienated by therealisation that government does not take themseriously. Government services and activities areless efficient than they could be - and indeedgenerate endless problems for one another andfor other bodies to deal with - because of failureto communicate with non-English speakingpopulations and failure to avail themselves ofthe knowledge of ethnic situations and attitudeswhich ethnic groups and institutions couldsupply.

(ii) Proposals for policy.So far as proposals are concerned, we limitourselves to two general points. First, for thepromotion of equality, cultural identity andsocial cohesion, it is essential that people ofnon-English speaking background have theopportunity to take part in communityconsultation as both individuals and members ofethnic groups. This means that, while animportant channel of communication betweengovernment and non-English speaking people isthe ethnic community, it should never beassumed that all people of non-Englishbackground will want to communicate in thisway. The ethnic press and ethnic radio shouldbe encouraged to provide a forum for theindividual point of view. Government bodiesneed to be much better geared to take into

account and respond to communications inlanguages other than English than the CoombsCommission found them to be.

Secondly, we wish to emphasise that thedevelopment of better inter-group understanding- and the complementary avoidance of inter-group conflict - do not happen automatically.They require that government commit resourcesto programs of community participation andeducation, programs designed, as theCommittee on Settlement Programs put it, 'tosmooth the path between the ethniccommunities, the new arrivals and the "host"community'. Examination of what kind ofprograms are appropriate in the Australiancontext is in an embryonic stage, but whateverform such programs take they will represent thecost that has to be paid to sustain the type ofsocial cohesion that is consistent with bothequality and cultural identity.

Part CThe Implications ofMulticulturalism forImmigration Policy

Three sets of criteria determine immigrationpolicy and the annual immigration target: thedemands of the economy, the capacity of thecountry to absorb immigrants and internationalexpectations and obligations. In the past thedemands of the economy have overridden otherconsiderations; 'capacity to absorb' has beentaken into account only in gross and crudeterms.

In these concluding remarks we will leave asidethe question of international expectations andobligations, which opens up issues far beyondour present brief, and propose what we see asextremely important principles that 'capacity toabsorb' should be assessed rigorously andcomprehensively and that the demands of theeconomy and capacity to absorb should beconsidered as interdependent sets of criteria, ortwo sides of one coin.

The demands of the economy are many, but theone aspect that is particularly relevant to


immigration is the labour market. Because therange of countries and population groups fromwhich Australia can expect to attract migrants inthe foreseeable future is very limited andbecause the flow of migrants will continue to beunpredictable except in the very short term,immigration in the future will be able to servicemanpower needs only in broad terms: that is,immigration may be controlled to the extent ofadding so many members to the work force, orto the extent of adding so many unskilled orqualified workers, but it cannot realistically beconceived as a means of filling particularimmediate gaps in the work force, except forcomparatively small and specialised recruitmentprograms. We agree with the Green Paper that'the major economic challenges lie in long-termprospects' (1977:73), but we note that theWhite Paper on Manufacturing Industry (1977)makes no reference to immigration as a factor inmanpower policies relevant to manufacturing.

The most effective way in which immigrationcan serve manpower needs is via migrantsettlement and education policies. Effectiveprograms for teaching English to non-Englishspeaking adults take a major and uniquecontribution to manpower needs in three ways:by helping transform unusable skills into usableones, by supplying the essential prerequisite forupgrading existing skills or acquiring new ones,and by promoting the overall mobility andflexibility of the work force. Provisions for therecognition of overseas qualifications, forretraining and for adult apprenticeship andtraining are further measures which can be usedin a predictable and co-ordinated way to bringimmigration into harmony with manpowerneeds.

An emphasis on settlement and educationpolicies as the means of integrating immigrationwith the economy, while downplaying theimportance of specific occupational skills in theselection of migrants, has nevertheless one clearimplication for selection. This is the implicationthat migrants of working age should be capableof learning English, which is a somewhatdifferent approach from that of the Green Paper,with its emphasis on the advantages of migrants

having a knowledge of English. Although it isextremely difficult to assess the capacity of non-English speakers to learn English, to the best ofour judgment literacy in the individual's mothertongue is a better predictor than any othercriterion that can be realistically applied in theselection of migrants. All adult migrants bothmen and women, of working age shouldtherefore be literate among intending migrants.

The requirement that migrants should beliterate in their mother tongue gives only apartial answer to the question: how are migrantsto be selected ? Assuming that the usual healthand character standards of selection would bemaintained, we consider that the other factorwhich should be given great weight is familymembership.

In our judgment the available evidence suggeststhat adult migrants with families in Australiahave less settlement problems than those whoarrive alone, with no family already establishedhere, and are less likely to return to their homecountry.

A selection policy which gives weight to familymembership would, by implication, favourfamily reunion. We do not propose to go intodetails of how a family reunion policy, ifdecided upon, should be administered, but wewish to make six important points.

(1) At the present time no-one can offeranything better than an informed guessabout the population increase thatwould result from a more liberal familyreunion policy. We therefore propose agradual relaxation of the present severerestrictions.

(2) Any family reunion policy whichfavoured some existing groups overothers would create resentment anddissension and thus subvert socialcohesion as well as departing from ourequality guidelines. Family reunion isan end in itself and should not bedistorted in the attempt to make itserve other purposes.


(3) From the AEAC discussions and fromconsultations with ethnic communities,it seems clear that migrant groups feelstrongly about their right to familyreunion. Any large-scale immigrationintake that did not include a majorfamily reunion component wouldcause much resentment and agitation .

(4) The Green Paper examines theargument that immigration policyshould aim to build up the ethniccommunities already established inAustralia (on the grounds that thesecommunities have the resources andinstitutions to assist the settlement ofnewcomers) in preference toencouraging or allowing greaterdiversification. An emphasis on familyreunion would operate against theintroduction of new ethnic groups intothe country but would not necessarilyfavour the already large communitiesover the smaller. We cannot see anymoral or other grounds for gearingimmigration policy to the existing size ofethnic communities. A policy offavouring large groups over smallerwould be contrary to our equalityguidelines and would be based on thefalse and ahistorical assumption thatsmall groups are less supportive ofnewcomers than large. Moreover thereis no reason why groups which becomelarge in the future should not developthe institutions and services which thelarger groups have now.

(5) The Green Paper also asks: 'is it noteasier to provide for the social needs ofa population where the range of ethnicor cultural groupings is comparativelylimited?' (1977:59). In reply, we wouldsay that it is too late for suchconsiderations to carry weight: therealready exist single schools with pupilsfrom over twenty countries, andhospitals and other services now facean immense diversity among theirpatients and clients. At the same time,

this diversity has called forth someimaginative and highly promisingresponses (e.g. the TIS, educationprograms like Dr Marta Rado'sbilingual materials, the mobile culturalinterpreters being trained by the NewSouth Wales Health Commission) andvery much more can be done alongthese lines.

(6) The concern - often implied ratherthan expressed openly, but influentialnevertheless - that family reunionpolicies will encourage the increase ofsome less 'desirable' ethniccommunities and reduce thepredominance of the more 'desirable'(often equated with English speaking)seem to us to be founded on mythsand prejudices rather than the realityof how different groups actually live inthe Australian community. Inadequateand fragmented as the evidence is, webelieve that one firm conclusion isjustified: on even a narrow range ofcrude criteria, like poverty, income,crime, mental illness and alcoholism,no one group consistently shows upmore, or less, favourably than others; ifone applied a wider range of criteriathat included self-help, family stability,creativity, participation in communityaffairs and contributions to the workforce, evidence of the concentration ofall virtues or vices in any one groupwould dissolve completely. Theconclusion to A Decade of MigrantSettlement made the same point indifferent terms: 'among migrants bornin any one country there is a widerange of experience and betweengroups there is more overlapping'(1976:127). We therefore wish to assertthat, in terms of the record of differentethnic groups, there is no justification fora policy of building up some ethnicgroups already established in Australia incomparison with others.


Conclusion

One of man's basic needs is a sense ofbelonging. The more secure we feel in oneparticular social context, the more free we are toexplore our identity beyond it. Ethnic pluralismcan help us overcome or prevent the insecurity,homogenisation and loss of personal identity ofmass society.

Ethnic communities have a particularsignificance for migrants: they can provide asense of belonging and of continuity with thepast which gives newcomers a better chance tocope with a strange society than they wouldhave as isolated individuals. Ethnic loyalties,however, need not, and usually do not, detractfrom wider loyalties to community and country.Indeed, in a cohesive multicultural society,national loyalties are built on ethnic loyalties.

We agree with the statement adopted at theUNESCO meeting on 'Cultural Pluralism andNational Identity' (Calgary, Alberta, Canada,June 1977) that 'cultural pluralism isincreasingly becoming a matter of consciouschoice'. We believe, therefore, that our goal inAustralia should be to create a society in whichpeople of non-Anglo-Australian origin are given theopportunity, as individuals or groups, to choose topreserve and develop their culture - theirlanguages, traditions and arts - so that these canbecome living elements in the diverse culture of thetotal society, while at the same time they enjoyeffective and respected places within one Australiansociety, with equal access to the rights andopportunities that society provides and acceptingresponsibilities towards it.

In our view, an acceptance of the multiculturalnature of Australian society implies thatgovernment and established institutionsacknowledge the validity of ethnic cultures andrespond in terms of ethnic beliefs, values andcustoms. Because of differences among minoritycultures themselves and also because someminority values are totally inconsistent withfundamental values of the dominant Australianculture (e.g. the norm that the family takes the

law into its own hands to redress a wrong doneto one of its members), it would be nonsense tosay that multiculturalism means that everyculture is equally valued and equally legitimate.What it does mean is that the spokesmen forevery culture should be heard, that they shouldhave a chance to put their case in communitydebate, that they should be taken seriously inhigh places. Among the groups that are 'in' (e.g.trade unions, employers, the establishedchurches, the AMA), this dialogue goes on allthe time; some groups win more often thanothers, but there is constant give and take,compromise and rethinking. Multiculturalismmeans ethnic communities getting 'into the act'.

What we believe Australia should be workingtowards is not a oneness, but a unity, not asimilarity, but a composite, not a melting potbut a voluntary bond of dissimilar peoplesharing a common political and institutionalstructure. In the words of the UNESCOstatement referred to above, 'Cultural pluralismoffers a framework for the full development ofhuman potential, both at the individual andgroup level. It guarantees the cultural identityand social and cultural security of individualsand groups, while at the same time ensuring theenrichment of human experience and inter-cultural understanding'.

References

Australian Population and ImmigrationCouncil, A Decade of Migrant Settlement: AReport on the 1973 Immigration Survey.Canberra: AGPS, 1976.

Australian Population and ImmigrationCouncil, Immigration Policies and Australia'sPopulation: A Green Paper. Canberra: AGPS,1977.

Committee on Community Relations, FinalReport. Canberra: AGPS, 1975.

Martin, J.I. and Willcock, H.F., (eds). 'TheEducation of Migrant Children in Australia', inAustralian Immigration: A Bibliography andDigest No. 3, 1975, Part 2. Canberra:


Australian National University, 1976.

Nicoll, Paul, Directions for Research in MigrantEducation. Canberra: CommonwealthDepartment of Education, April 1977.

Report of the Committee on the Teaching ofMigrant Languages in Schools. Canberra:AGPS, 1976.

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