Page 774 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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AusAID, we have a French bilingual school, Telopea. An International Baccalaureate program has long been running at Narrabundah college. It has now started at Canberra college as well, which is wonderful. This is a very high standard of education and something which we are proud to offer in our public schools.
There are a number of bilingual schools, as Mrs Dunne has already mentioned, in Canberra, the latest being a Chinese bilingual school. Also, the ANU had a centre for excellence of Russian languages. It had one of the few Russian language projects in the country, perhaps because of the number of embassies here in the ACT. As Mrs Dunne has already mentioned, there have been quite a number of issues raised recently about ongoing support for language classes. I was very disappointed to learn just recently that Japanese classes have closed, which will be of great disappointment to the students who have an interest in this area.
As has already been mentioned, community radio has an important role because for many of the culturally and linguistically diverse communities, local radio is often the only way for recent migrants to find out about local news and their communities. We have SBS radio, which is important, but obviously we have fantastic programs offered through community radio: 2XX, which has around 30 ethnic communities, and CMS—Canberra’s only local full-time multicultural radio station—which broadcasts in 30 languages. I recently went on the Spanish language program—
Mrs Dunne: How’s your Spanish?
MS BRESNAN: My Spanish is not good, Mrs Dunne. I think “buenas noches” was about it. Again, it is a wonderful way to connect with the community. I would just like to acknowledge Sela. The minister mentioned that she was also at those awards, as were a number of members here. It was just wonderful to see the joy which she showed in winning that award and how much it meant to her and all the people around her. She is just a wonderful woman.
Another issue I have taken up recently relates to representation from the ACT on the Australian Multicultural Council. The council provides advice to the federal government on multicultural issues, informs government policy and ensures government services respond effectively to the needs of Australia’s diverse communities. Minister Burch has expressed her agreement on this issue that the federal council would be greatly improved if it had an ACT representative.
I wrote to Senator Kate Lundy about this issue last year. Obviously Senator Lundy is an ACT senator but she is also the Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. I expressed to Senator Lundy my disappointment that the Australian Multicultural Council did not include a member representing the ACT. This was a problem with the previous configuration of the AMC. Again, it had a representative from every jurisdiction except the ACT. In my letter I emphasised that the ACT multicultural community has knowledgeable and experienced community leaders. I think all of us in this chamber know that and have had the benefit of working with these groups.
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