Written By Su-Lin Tan for South China Morning Post
Ten of the recommendations were marked as high priority, including the offering of citizenship tests in other non-English languages, to recognise and preserve the cultural heritage of migrants and strengthen “a sense of belonging”, the report said.
The deterioration of this sense of belonging, amid rising discrimination and prejudice, prompted the commissioning of the review more than a year ago. Read more…
Quotes from CEO of COMPELL:
Migrants face much bigger residency problems long before they reach the citizenship test and need more government support, not just migration agents, to advance towards citizenship, evidence compiled by Allies in Colour shows.
“It goes way back in their pathway to citizenship and this is where support needs to be provided, not at the end point [of citizenship],” Rouwette said. “Many migrants don’t understand their rights.”
“Creating a new commissioner role is a ‘very Western’ way of solving issues, which doesn’t apply to multicultural Australia,” she said.
“The government needs to find new methodologies. It keeps using the same advisory board, the same methods to solve multicultural issues.”