Measuring Australia’s cultural diversity will become a focus of the new federal government as it moves to strengthen the nation’s immigration programs and multicultural institutions.   

In his first speech as Minister for Immigration, Andrew Giles said his aim was to strengthen Australia’s status as the world’s most successful country.

“It will be the role of the new national government to measure and value modern multicultural Australia,” Mr Giles told the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils (FECCA) 2022 Conference in Melbourne.

He said a ‘CALD Data Group’ would be set up to implement a whole of government strategy to nmeasure diversity in Australia.

“We don’t measure diversity well enough in Australia, so we’ll have a whole of government approach to understand our diversity better so we can improve policy development,” Mr Giles said.

“We’ll have a national standard for measuring diversity that will operate through the census and through areas like hospitals, mental health, ageing and disability,” he said.

Mr Giles said Australia’s failure to collect data on ethnicity or race — unlike the US, Canada and New Zealand — was a “fundamental barrier to understanding the issues that face multicultural Australians”.

“I looked at the sort of countries that we often compare ourselves to … and we weren’t compiling data that enables us to understand the representation of different population groups,” he said.

Mr Giles said multiculturalism would again become central to the way government works  

“For nine years the strengths we have in multicultural communities has been ignored and during the pandemic, we saw deeply unequal outcomes for some communities,” he said.

“Over that time the importance and value of multiculturalism has failed to be recognised and realised.”

Mr Giles also noted the election of more parliamentarians from diverse background at the recent federal election.

“It is good to more diversity in parliament but there is more to be done.

He said he hoped the election result would ends the so-called ‘culture wars’.

“We want to see a more respectful discussion about issued around multiculturalism.

And he vowed to listen to communities and build on the “vision of a country where everyone belongs and where no one is left behind or held back”.

Mr Giles told the conference he planned to make a case for a strong immigration policy.

“We need to change the tone of the debate about immigration from a restrictive program to one that looks at who we can be as a nation. We want to prioritise pathways to permanence over temporary visas and the exploitation of migrant workers,” he said.

The Minister also vowed to work to stamp racism which his said was “on the rise” in Australia.

“We will have a national anti-racism strategy based on a zero-tolerance approach,” Mr Giles said.

And he committed to creating a public service that better reflected and represented Australia’s cultural diversity.

“Our diversity is a great strength but it can never be taken for granted. We want a country where everyone belongs,” Mr Giles said.

“We want a truly reconciled nation in which everyone if valued respected and belongs,” he said.

Also speaking at the FECCA Conference was the new Shadow Immigration spokesman Dan Tehan who also committed to working for a stronger multicultural Australia.

“What you won’t see from me is needless politicisation of immigration and multiculturalism,” he said.