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Multiculturalism in practice Victoria

Arthur Faulkner.

Arthur Faulkner dicussing the then Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Department dealing with migrants and cultural diversity.

Created:

1994

Date Added:

18 July 2002

Source:

Interview for Making Multicultural Australia, 1994.

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

--

Length:

56 secs

Transcript

ARTHUR FAULKNER
Senior Policy Officer, Victorian Department of Human Services, and formerly in the Research and Policy Division, Victorian Ethnic Affairs Commission

There was a feeling at the time that the then Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Department kind of did things for migrants, and it set up programs, and was helping them - if not to assimilate - then certainly, not to find their own expression and their own organisations.
The Ethnic Affairs Commission at this time, which was supported by a number of the people who, in the early seventies had been trying to establish that agenda (of cultural diversity) - so, people like Des Storer, people like George Papadopoulos, Luciano Bini, Gary Sheppard - these were people who had been quite supportive a decade later, and in establishing the Commission, wanted to have a vehicle whereby ethnic communities would begin to articulate their own agendas: that you would have a Department and a Government that would work with communities rather than simply for them.

CONTINUATION OF INTERVIEW AS TEXT

Ethnic communities were crucial in setting up the agenda. But I think what has to be recognised was the varying degrees of willingness of Australian institutions to change.

Interview for Making Multicultural Australia, 1994.