Ethnic NZ conference 2005

Dr Rasalingam, Honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here today and to participate in this conference.

New Zealand in 2005 is a wonderfully vibrant, diverse society. Gone are the days when we referred to ourselves as bi-cultural; we now enjoy the status of a multi-cultural society, with all the advantages that brings.

Particularly here in Auckland, the melting pot is in full effect – faces, food and dialects from all corners of the globe define our local communities, and our key industries are benefiting from a wider pool of people and skills.

In 1999 - at about the same time as your parent organisation, Asian Social Services, began its work - the Labour government set up the role of Ethnic Affairs Minister. It did so in direct response to New Zealand changing cultural and demographic profile.

Today, current Minister of Ethnic Affairs Chris Carter plays an important advocacy role, and keeps in close contact with New Zealanders from all ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, your organisation has changed its focus, from Asian Social Services to servicing the wider Auckland ethnic community.

The growing diversity and importance of Auckland’s ethnic communities necessitated the change and you're now well positioned as a pan ethnic organisation to meet the needs of all ethnicities.

Today's conference is exciting. It's a chance to learn first hand the needs and aspirations of our ethnic communities. From there they can respond in a practical and informed way. It's about working from the ground up.

This sort of direct feedback is vital if we're to address issues and create a happier, healthier and most prosperous environment for all New Zealanders.

It goes without say that migrants and refugees face special challenges in building new lives in a new country - conferences like this help heighten our awareness of these challenges. They provide a voice for sections of our community that might otherwise remain voiceless.

I say the louder that voice the better, because the more its heard, the better the chance of an open and inclusive society.

Government's commitment to settlement

As a Government, I can confirm we are listening and firmly committed to supporting the settlement needs of migrants and refugees. Testimony to this is the progress we've made over the past two years with employment, interpreting and ESOL services.

The June Budget saw a boost for these measures of $62 million over the next four years; an investment that will pay dividends not only to migrants but to New Zealand as a whole.

The package includes:

·A $39m increase in ESOL funding;
·$11.7m to establish a national network of migrant resource services
·$6m for the Refugee and Migrant Service
·$4m on career, labour market and workplace advice;
·$300,000 for NZQA to assess overseas qualifications for refugees
·and $1m to support a national settlement secretariat to improve coordination between government agencies and other organisations.

So how have we put this funding into effect so far? Here are some highlights:

·1,000 schools have received six-monthly payments for ESOL teaching at the new, increased rates

·Additional ESOL Migrant Education Co-ordinators have been appointed in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch

·Every Career Services Centre has provided additional services to migrants

·The Refugee and Migrant Service has appointed 12 additional staff in the smaller centres

·A new initiative — Settlement Support New Zealand— will roll out nine local settlement networks in June this year. A further ten cities around New Zealand will receive this support in 2006.

·Each of these 19 settlement networks will have a Coordinator employed to strengthen the government, non-government and ethnic communities’ connections for improved local settlement.

·Over the past two years, a joint Labour Department and Canterbury Chamber of Commerce employment service for the long-term unemployed has placed over 120 migrants in skills-related occupations.

·The joint Labour Department and Auckland Chamber of Commerce New Kiwis website has placed almost 1,500 migrants in skills –related employment in just over three years.

·The free telephone interpreting service Language Line offers services in 37 languages, represents 11 government agencies and is already responding to over 500 calls a week.

New Zealand Settlement Strategy

Another exciting and significant move was the announcement in December of New Zealand Settlement Strategy by my colleague, Immigration Minister Paul Swain. The Strategy came out of extensive consultation with a large range of agencies both within and outside of Government. Ethnic and new migrant communities also helped shape the strategy.

It used to be said that if Immigration brought people to New Zealand then Immigration should look after them. Thankfully we no longer adopt this dictum, and the New Zealand Settlement Strategy demands a whole-of-Government approach.

The Strategy contains six goals for migrants, refugees and their families: appropriate employment; access to services like housing and education; supportive social networks; language support; participation in civic, community and social activities and acceptance by the wider host community.

The Strategy is being led by the Department of Labour, which has upped its investment in settlement related work. The Department's recent restructure saw the creation of a new Settlement Division, which now sits alongside its new Pacific Division and the existing Refugee Division.

Settlement Secretariat

The Settlement Division’s work includes the new Settlement Secretariat, whose role it is to facilitate and support regular dialogue between central government, local government, and other stakeholders. The Secretariat also supports settlement forums such as this one.

Settlement Support New Zealand

A second area of work for the Settlement Division is, as I've mentioned, the new Settlement Support New Zealand initiative. It won't be news to you that migrants and refugees have difficulty accessing local information in areas where they settle.

Nor would it surprise you that mainstream services are not always responsive to the needs of New Zealand' newcomers. There's lots of information about New Zealand in general, but migrants tell us it's not always easy to access.

Settlement Support New Zealand will focus on the information needs of migrants and refugees in their first 2-3 years in their local community.

If we consider what happens in local settlement areas now, we see that while a number of central and local government agencies support settlement in key areas, they don't always connect with each other about the support they provide. They tend to operate in isolation from each other.

Similarly in your area of settlement work, the non-government sector, we find that there aren't always good connections between agencies.

Refugee and migrant communities are also important in settlement work – community leaders need to be well-informed about settlement support initiatives. Members of refugee and migrant communities who work in settlement-related work would also benefit by being more connected with each other.

So what Settlement Support plans to do is establish local networks that draw these currently disconnected layers of information into a cohesive structure. The Networks' focus will be local planning for local settlement needs. They'll also be funded to support local orientation workshops and specialist settlement- information workshops both for migrants and refugees and for local services.

The collated reports from 19 such Networks will build our Settlement picture nationally, and contribute to further the development of the New Zealand Settlement Strategy. As already mentioned, the first nine networks will roll out in June 2005, with the following ten in 2006.

I've gone into quite a lot of detail about these new areas of work because in the scheme of things they're very exciting and likely to make a notable difference. Not only do they focus directly on the needs of migrants and refugees, they're also responsive and flexible.

They have to be. Settlement is not a static activity. It’s a constantly changing pattern of people and needs.

Settlement is important to New Zealand because if we're going to attract and retain the skilled migrants we need, we need to ensure they receive the right sort of support during the critical early years of settlement.

It's also the key to creating an open and inclusive society in which ethnic diversity is recognised and celebrated. There are certainly instances of this recognition and celebration; you can read about them in the Immigration Services quarterly "Immigration Matters" publication.

A recent issue featured Zlata Sosa, who arrived in New Zealand from Yugoslavia in 1996. Zlata now works at the Multicultural Services Centre in Wellington and last year became coordinator of the centre's ESOL Home Tutor Service. She notes the support she's received from colleagues and other New Zealanders, who have recognised her skills and trusted her knowledge.

Leon Smith moved here from South Africa last year and now works as a foundryman and engineering patternmaker in Thames. He reckons there was a lot to learn at first, including exactly what it means to "bring a plate". He vows never to turn up with an empty plate again.

Meanwhile, exiled Iraqi poet Basim Furat, who came to New Zealand in 1997, now lives in Wellington. He recently published a selection of poems in English. One, entitled "Here and There", begins "Aotearoa, Aoteroa, My Sweet refuge".

We wouldn’t be the country that we are today without the richness and diversity of our citizens. We all benefit from immigration and we’d be a poorer country if we didn’t welcome a broad range of people here.

And that’s where our commitment comes in. We want people to settle easily and quickly in their new home. We want them to contribute to our society and celebrate their new lives here. We don’t want dislocation. We want everyone to feel part of an inclusive, thriving community. It’s what’s good for New Zealanders – both old and new.

Before I close, can I just acknowledge once again Ethnic Voice president Dr Rasalingam, for his tireless work in helping migrants in New Zealand. Thank you also to all those people who're committed to fostering partnerships rather than differences with our ethnic communities.

Thank you and best of luck for the remainder of the day.