Language and core values key to effective integration

Separatist multiculturalism would undermine national unity.

Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge issued an important warning in his speech to the Australia-UK Leadership Forum in London. Australia, he said, was “slightly veering towards a European separatist multicultural model and we want to pull it back to be firmly on the Australian integrated path”. The separatist model that often has prevailed in Europe has seen too many migrants transplant their entire practices, language and culture, with little expectation placed on them to share or mix with local communities. As former British prime minister David Cameron said in 2011: “We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.” Such a model, as Mr Tudge said, can be a formula for conflict and alienation.

Last week, The Australian revealed that permanent migration has fallen to a 10-year low of 162,417, despite record applications. That pattern allows authorities to be highly selective about who joins our nation. We endorse the Turnbull government’s efforts to address the issues identified by Mr Tudge. These include the need to improve English-language skills among migrants, ensuring the acceptance of Australian values and encouraging more of those admitted under humanitarian programs to find work. For their own fulfilment, and for the sake of taxpayers, higher expectations should be placed on them.

Mr Tudge did not pretend to have all the answers. It was a growing concern, he acknowledged, that the number and proportion of people with little or no English capability was rising rapidly and soon would total a million. That is similar to the level of non-English speakers in Britain, which has twice Australia’s population. The Australian has said previously that a language test for applicants seeking permanent residency would be a strong incentive for the partners of skilled migrants or people arriving under the family reunion program to learn the language. Immigrants in those categories do not have to pass any English test at present.

As a means of developing social cohesion, Mr Tudge’s call for the promotion of values such as “freedom of speech and worship, equality between sexes, democracy and the rule of law, a fair go for all and the taking of individual responsibility” was timely. Being confident enough to call out practices that contradict those values, even if part of the culture of a particular group, is important. It is also the antithesis of postmodern ideas that have encroached on public debate, wrongly suggesting that no one set of values is better than another. We agree with Mr Tudge that while tolerance is generally a good principle, practices such as female genital mutilation, child marriage or women being prohibited from learning English, studying or driving must not be tolerated in Australia. Diversity and tolerance, as he says, are positive principles only when they operate within an agreed set of values, held collectively, that should not be compromised.

Australia has been built by generations of migrants, integrating and enriching the wider whole with their hard work, talents and customs. Migrants living in isolated cultural and language bubbles in suburbs has never been the Australian way and the government is right to discourage it.