Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on and support the Translating and Interpreting Services Bill today because translating and interpreting services have always held a special place in Australia's story. When you look at Australia's story, we look at our wonderful multicultural story. We have people that live here, that settle here, from all over the world. Language is more than words. Language carries with it its identity, dignity and the ability to feel seen and understood. It's very important.

When someone arrives newly to this country or someone has perhaps been here for many years but has never been able to learn the language because of their basic education—perhaps they didn't go to school when they were very young in a war torn country, perhaps they've been here for years and have been isolated because the husband's been at work and the wife has been home or the other way round or whatever the reason—there are many circumstances that bring them to the point where they do not speak the language within the place that they live. With Australia being Australia, with such a high migrant and multicultural community, this is fundamental to what we do and who we are and a basic right that everyone deserves.

There are moments when an interpreter does so much more than just translate. They open the door, they provide hope, and they are someone to listen. They are who someone can actually tell what they feel, who someone can be listened to by and who can then go on and convey that particular message to whoever it may be. We don't always get it right, and maybe sometimes we don't give translating and interpreting the importance that they deserve. I know that we regularly use translating and interpreting services in our electorate office. When we have constituents that can't speak English and speak a different language, we will engage the interpreting services for translating over the phone during a constituent meeting.

The issue of translating and interpreting services is that, without that particular service, great disasters can be brought to a person's life. And I can think of two stories that I'm aware of of two people who went through a particular issue not knowing the ins and outs of it because of the language difficulties. The first one is a woman who has now passed away. When she was conveying this story to me, she was in her late 80s. She migrated from Greece in 1921. Her husband brought her out from a little island in the Aegean Sea. She spoke no English, he was at work all day, and she was having great difficulties having a baby. She couldn't conceive for whatever reason. After many, many difficulties she fell pregnant and had the child. But in childbirth she nearly died. That's all she could tell me.

I asked her the question about why she didn't have any other children, and she said to me, 'Because I had a very difficult childbirth, extremely difficult, and I nearly died, I never went on to have other children.' And I said to her, 'Did you speak to doctors et cetera?' She said, 'Yes, after many years, after giving birth to my first child and thinking that it was just God's will that I wasn't having a second child, we decided to go and see a doctor 10 years after.' The question from the doctor was, 'When did you have your hysterectomy?' She had no idea because of the language barrier. Her husband couldn't speak English. There were no interpreting services in those days. And there she was for 10 years trying to have a baby, not knowing that they had performed a hysterectomy. Now they most probably saved her life. They saved her life, no doubt, at that point when she was having difficulties. But what a sad story. What a really sad story when you think about it.

Now, not going back that far, only five years ago I had a particular constituent that contacted me. He would deal with our office regularly. His English was quite capable—not perfect but capable. He had been airlifted from mid-north South Australia after a horrific accident and taken to hospital to have an operation. I went to see him, because his family rang me—they were interstate—to try and find out what was happening. The nurse was explaining to me that he needed an operation immediately the next day and that it was a fairly major operation to do with his stomach and spleen et cetera. It was even technical for me, being competent in English, to understand what the actual ins and outs of this operation were. So I suggested to the head nurse in the ward at the Royal Adelaide Hospital that they arrange an interpreter for the next day, when the doctor was going to come. The interpreter obviously didn't turn up for whatever reason.

He was operated on, and I went to see him after the operation because, apart from just being a constituent, he had become a very good friend. He couldn't tell me what sort of operation he'd had. They just operated on him. He said to me that he didn't know. The operation was the removal of part of his spleen and a few other things. But, again, it's another sad story. The operation most probably saved his life, but he deserved interpreting services. People in those situations need to know exactly what's happening to them, especially in health. Then we go to the courts. That's a different matter again. Your legal rights, your rights under the law—you should know and understand what your rights are.

This bill before the House will strengthen interpreting services. It will streamline them and give more access to people. But it is important in a country like Australia that we ensure that people have the ability to understand. When they're going through government agencies for health care and legal matters, and even going to see the school teacher, it's sometimes a burden and there needs to be an understanding of what is said.

Three weeks ago, I was in Athens, and I went to a shopping centre just to buy something—I can't remember what it was—in a supermarket. I saw a little Chinese boy. He would have been about 10. His mother obviously couldn't speak the local language at all. They were migrants. I was watching him run up to the shop attendant to tell her something in Greek, because he obviously went to school there. He would then run back to his mother and explain it to her. She would then tell him what product they were after. Finally, they got the product they wanted.

It reminded me of many migrant stories here in Australia, with kids as young as 10, 11 and 12 interpreting for neighbours who couldn't speak English—and even me for my parents on many occasions, even though their English was fairly competent, and for friends. I still do it today. I still get people coming into the electorate office with letters saying, 'What does this say?' So it's not just an extra service that we throw on top just to make it look good. It is important. It is absolutely critical to a country like Australia. We want people to be part of our community and to participate in everything we offer that is fantastic in this country. We want people to feel like they are part of the community. We don't want to see horror stories, where people are having hysterectomies and not knowing that they've had one because there was no-one to interpret or to explain to them at that point what was happening, or like in Bill's case at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he had half his spleen taken out and a whole range of other things through that operation and had no idea what was being done. I'm not saying that he would have said no, but it would have been good to know. It's good to know what you're doing. We accept it as part of our everyday life.

Translating and interpreting services are absolutely vital. This bill introduces a dedicated legal framework that actually outlines how the Department of Home Affairs will administer and deliver translating and interpreting services through the translating and interpreting service system. But, beyond the legal language, what it really does is protect something deeply human and something deeply important to people—and that is having the information that involves their actions, whether they say yes or no. We all know that we have a right to say yes or no to things that are being offered to us. This is one of those areas where issues that relate to health, to legal matters, to a whole range of things are so important. It's been part of Australia's fabric for generations.

The interpreting service started in '47, when we agreed on the Migration Act to bring over many migrants in a planned manner. We decided back then in 1947, as a nation, as a result of the post-World War II migration program, that we needed interpreting services for those people. Over the decades, the interpreter services have grown alongside Australia's multicultural communities. And we want them to grow. We want them to be strong, and we want to ensure that every single person has access to an interpreting service if required.

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