Page 78 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2019
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“Australia’s premier celebration of cultural and linguistic diversity”, with the words “and linguistic” formatted in bold. The home page also points out, again in bold text, that it will involve “more than 350 community groups, using scores of different languages”.
On Thursday of next week the world will observe International Mother Language Day. Proclaimed by the United Nations in November 1999, this day promotes, according to the UN’s website, “linguistic and cultural diversity”. The descriptions for each of these events make clear the important link between language and culture.
In September 2017 a motion by the Canberra Liberals called upon this government to observe International Mother Language Day, also to promote the active participation in, revitalisation and maintenance of local Indigenous languages, and to support second language instruction in schools. Speaking in support, I noted:
As linguists, anthropologists and other scholars have repeatedly pointed out, language is closely tied to both culture and identity. Languages serve as libraries of cultural knowledge as well as enabling the transference of that knowledge across generations.
I remind members that, according to the latest census, 32 per cent of Canberra’s residents are migrants, and more than half of us have at least one parent who was a migrant. Linked to this reality is the fact that a non-English language is spoken in nearly one-quarter of the territory’s households. As a consequence, people care deeply about what this government says about multiculturalism and linguistic diversity. More importantly, they care about what this government does.
The ACT government’s first languages policy, your voices, was released in 2012 and provided both policy statements and promised implementations for the period 2012 to 2016. According to objective 3 in the ACT multicultural framework, the policy should have been revealed in fiscal year 2015-16, the final year of its intended life span. It was not; nor was it reviewed, from what I can tell, in either of the next two years.
This delay came without any explanation, which caused concern to quite a number of Canberra’s multicultural community members, who shared their worries and displeasure with me. As a consequence, over the past two years I have asked a number of questions on notice and made a number of statements in this chamber in support of the ACT government reviewing and updating its languages policy so that people can honestly know what to expect.
Finally, four months ago, the territory’s multicultural community received a long-awaited update to the languages policy. This, however, was actually just an update to one section of the old policy, the language services section—a fact acknowledged by the minister when he tabled the document. This means that nearly three years after its end date, most of the ACT’s former languages policy remains unrevised and without any updates, and no-one that I am aware of has been given any explanation as to why.
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