ANNUAL REPORT

Chair - Nick Xynias AO BEM
It gives me great pleasure to present to the members
of the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland
this annual report for the year ended 30 June 2005.
The year has been one of solid growth and
consolidation for ECCQ as a group – growth in our
service divisions, Diversicare and Berlasco Court,
and consolidation at ECCQ House.
Each of these areas is reported on in detail in this
annual report by the responsible managers.
Global terrorism remained a constant threat, bringing
the issue of multiculturalism and migration
policy into sharp focus. Indeed, multiculturalism as
public policy is at a crossroads.
Multiculturalism is one of the most successful
contemporary public policies of Australia. It
changed the face of Australia, the nature of our
democracy, the shape of our relations with the
world.
Only 50 years ago Australia was a relatively
unsophisticated country, marked by racism, open
discrimination and a policy of assimilation. Today
Australia is a sophisticated pluralistic society, well
adjusted to a globalised world, and with policies
and laws prohibiting discrimination.
Ethnic groups can take credit for significant
contributions to this change.
But multiculturalism is, possibly inevitably, a victim
of its own success.
Those born and educated in Australia of migrant
parents simply say: “We are Australians.” They
value their parents' heritage, but are not interested
in participating in their clubs and organisations. The
majority are comfortable accessing mainstream
institutions and participating in today's multicultural
Australia. They see no need to participate in
the multicultural movement. They take multicultural
Australia for granted.
But those who made Australia home, the heroes of
the multicultural revolution, are ageing. Their clubs
face financial difficulties because their membership
has aged and do not provide as much support as
they did a few years ago. The great communities of
the Sixties and Seventies - Italians, Greeks, Poles,
Germans, Dutch, Yugoslavs - are no longer so active
in public affairs nor as politically influential.
There are no natural successors to these
communities. The new communities established
between the late Seventies and now are not taking
over the organised multicultural movement.
The Anglo Celtic part of our community embraced
multiculturalism and enjoys its fruits but have not
become active participants in the multicultural
movement. They enjoy it but do not own it.
Somehow, the word ethnic was replaced by the
word multicultural but without
a corresponding expansion of
the movement. Public sympathy
for demands by multicultural
groups has waned. The high
moral ground gained by ethnic communities in the
mid-Seventies resulted in a range of policies to
redress factual and perceived injustices.
The focus of these policies was on welfare services
and greater cultural freedom. Few Australians
would now regard migrants, especially migrants
who settled here some time ago, as in need of
greater welfare.
Migrant success in education, business and the arts
is unquestionable. One third of BRW’s 200 Richest
Australians list are post-WWII migrants. Migrants
are no longer seen as victims of disadvantage.
I am not convinced that the multicultural movement
as we knew it will recover. I do not see the
organisational willpower, the financial resources or
the political climate to accomplish it.
Today, many of the battles have been won, in large
part, and new and emerging communities do not
always recognize the need for collective action and
unity.
This is a pity and could be costly – in our current
climate of fear and threat it won’t take much for
years of hard work to be lost with relatively minor
legislative and policy changes.
We must form strategic alliances with national
institutions and mechanisms that support diversity.
Unfortunately, new migrants and minority religions
can still be neglected in public policy and Islamic
groups in Australia remain concerned about antiterrorism
laws they feel target them. It is a real
concern for many Muslims in Australia. We must go
out of our way to address such fears.
We, especially, must speak out on behalf of the
oppressed and that means, in Australia, asylum
seekers who have been shamefully locked away,
sometimes for many years.
We must all raise our voices in the democratic
process to have this awful legislation, indefinite
detention of asylum seekers, repealed.
An important distinction, in danger of being blurred
through political correctness, is that we are a multicultural
country. We are not a country of multinations.
Citizenship is the bedrock of our
democratic future. We must develop in our children
respect for their ethnic cultural identities. But a
greater aim, surely, must be to promote and defend
the democratic principles we stand for, to foster
pride in our nation, pride in being Australian.
cont’d next page
ECCQ Annual Report 2004-2005
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