Gabriel Ng (Menzies, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Translating and Interpreting Services Bill 2025. The Translating and Interpreting Service, or TIS National, is an absolutely essential service that ensures that all Australians can fully participate in our civil life, our communities and our economy. It allows Australians from diverse backgrounds equal access to public institutions and services, and it allows the private sector to reach new domestic markets.

TIS is an indispensable piece of infrastructure for modern, multicultural Australia. The last census showed that over 5.5 million Australians speak a language other than English at home. In my electorate of Menzies, we're fortunate enough to have the proportionally largest Chinese Australian population of any electorate across the country. We have the largest Iranian population. We have established Greek and Italian communities and emerging Indian communities—people from almost every country on earth. It's an incredibly diverse community, and I'm honoured to represent it.

I have had extensive experience with TIS, particularly when I worked with the then Department of Immigration and Citizenship and later the Department of Home Affairs. In some roles, it was a service I used almost every day. For those who haven't used it, you can call TIS on 131450, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to request an interpreter. You can also book interpreters in advance. Hopefully, everyone in this place knows that our offices have access to TIS client numbers, and we can use them to make sure that we are reaching out to all members of the communities we represent. Of course, government departments and other public institutions are major clients but so are other essential services.

When I worked in refugee and migrant settlement services, we ensured that new arrivals were aware that they could request an interpreter. Let me give you a couple of examples of how vital this is. Imagine going to a hospital or GP and being unable to communicate what your symptoms are. Imagine if a doctor was giving you advice, advice that might preserve your health or even save your life, and you could not understand them. Thankfully, the TIS Doctors Priority Line is available to GPs, specialists, nurse practitioners, endorsed midwives, pharmacy staff and approved health practitioners. This means they can provide all Australians with the care they need when they need it. Without this, people would suffer and illnesses and diseases would worsen.

Where health professionals did not offer or accede to requests to use an interpreter, sometimes the children of clients would have to act as interpreters—sometimes for very sensitive matters. I believe we've had a few members of the chamber talk about how this becomes a necessity sometimes, but, thankfully, TIS is there and is a much better service in terms of being able to preserve the privacy and dignity of people, particularly when they're accessing health services.

I also saw the essential work of TIS when I was working as a judge's associate at the County Court. Imagine if you were a victim of crime and had to give evidence before a court but could not understand, let alone respond to, the questions that were put to you. Imagine if you were accused of a crime but had no way of understanding the proceedings. Imagine if you were pursuing civil relief but were unable to understand the complex legal procedures that were happening and that would determine whether or not you get compensation for, say, a personal injury matter or damage to your property.

I saw firsthand the work of highly skilled TIS interpreters who were able to provide professional and accurate interpretation so that all of those involved in the legal process—judges, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, victims and the accused—could participate equally. I also saw the work of TIS when I was volunteering at community legal centres. We had many clients from migrant and refugee backgrounds come in seeking free legal advice when I volunteered at the Fitzroy Legal Service. A large number of those clients came seeking support for family violence issues and property issues, and the only way they were able to communicate their problems and receive advice from the lawyers there was through TIS.

There might be some people who say that people immigrating to Australia should learn English. Of course, this is something that we not only encourage but also support people to do. Most skilled and student visas have a requirement that people pass a test demonstrating a high level of English, and we have the Adult Migrant English Program, which provides free English language tuition to people with migrant and refugee backgrounds. But you don't need to speak perfect English in order to be a proud and fully participating Australian. We're talking about highly technical areas sometimes—health, law, government services—that people who even speak English as a first language struggle with and that can be very difficult to understand if your native tongue is not English. TIS ensures that all Australians can communicate with each other and provides equal access and participation. TIS has existed in one form or another since World War II. It fosters understanding, community and engagement. It is an essential pillar of social cohesion.

Our tabling of this bill reflects this government's commitment to social cohesion. We are one of the most successful multicultural countries in the world. Nowhere is this more evident than at our local citizenship ceremonies, at which many of us have the honour to represent the parliament in our elected roles. Like many of us here, I attended a citizenship ceremony on Australia Day, at Manningham Council. As always, it was one of the most uplifting parts of the job, seeing the happiness and the pride of all the new citizens fully joining our great nation and being able to share that special day with them.

On Australia Day, I also attended an event in my electorate, in Box Hill, held by the Federation of Chinese Associations (Vic). It was a wonderful reflection of modern multicultural Australia, a celebration of both our national day and Chinese New Year. Those in attendance enjoyed a traditional welcome to country and musical performances from Indigenous Australians as well as traditional Chinese performances, such as a face-changing performance.

In my electorate of Menzies, we are demonstrating our commitment to multiculturalism and social cohesion with a $200,000 commitment to multicultural festivals run by the very hardworking Asian Business Association of Whitehorse, who represent a number of small businesses as well as medium-sized businesses in my electorate. This includes the Manningham Chinese New Year Festival, which will take place this Saturday, 7 February, at Doncaster Reserve. This is the second year the festival will be held, and our support means more people in our community can celebrate and experience Chinese culture. There will be food stalls, rides and cultural performances. Then on 21 February we'll have the Box Hill Chinese New Year Festival. This has become a real highlight not just of our local cultural calendar but of Melbourne's cultural calendar, and it now attracts over 100,000 people per year. Growing up in Melbourne's east, we always had to go into the city to celebrate Chinese New Year, so it means a lot to me that we can have these cultural celebrations in our local area and with our local community. The sharing of culture and fostering of understanding is so important to maintaining social cohesion.

I contrast this approach of bringing people together, which we are committed to, with the divisive approach of those opposite. We have not forgotten that, during the election campaign, one of their senators—the campaign spokesperson no less—accused Chinese Australians who were getting involved in the democratic process of being Chinese spies. After the election, their former attorney-general George Brandis said that they were 'running out of people to offend'. Well, they found some more. Another one of their senators accused Indian Australians of voting as a monolith and used her platform to spread disinformation about our migration system. More recently, at a time when we have been focused on eliminating antisemitism and maintaining social cohesion, former prime minister Scott Morrison, backed in by Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg, called for all Muslim religious leaders to have to register and be accredited by the government—this, from the party that apparently stands for individual rights and small government.

Now, of course, we know that the evidence points to the two men who carried out the horrific antisemitic terrorist attack in Bondi being motivated by an adherence to Islamic State, a perverted form of Islam. But the idea that the 813,000 Australian Muslims should be held collectively responsible for the actions of two men who perverted their faith is, to be frank, offensive. It would be like saying: 'All Australians should be held collectively responsible for the actions of the person who carried out the Christchurch massacre.' They should not be, and they are not. Islam is a religion of peace. It was put to me perfectly by one of our local Muslim leaders: the actions of Ahmed Al Ahmed, one of the heroes of Bondi, better represent the values of Islam than the actions of the two men who carried out the atrocity at Bondi.

This weekend, our local mosque, the United Muslim Migrants Association, will be having an open day for all members of the community to come and learn about Islam. I attended last year, when our local religious leaders welcomed people in and gave as much of their time as was needed to answer any questions people might have had. Sometimes these questions would have been challenging for them. Sometimes the questions relied on very outdated stereotypes and misinformation. But the Muslim leaders answered them with perfect graciousness and patience. That is what we need in our communities—not division, but building understanding, dispelling misinformation and reaching over cultural divides.

We stand with all Australians, embracing people of all faiths and backgrounds—Chinese, Indian, Jewish, Muslim. We want to bring Australians together and maintain social cohesion, and that is exactly what we are doing with this bill.

This bill creates a strong legislative framework to underpin TIS. It follows advice from the Australian Government Solicitor that says TIS National requires express legislative authority. It also considers the findings of the robodebt royal commission. We understand the importance of having proper legal foundations for government action. We also respect the advice of our independent public servants and legal counsel, unlike those opposite.

TIS is staffed by dedicated public servants who connect people who need interpreting services with the language experts they need—accurately, quickly and professionally. It is also staffed by highly skilled interpreters, accredited at different levels, who are able to interpret a wide range of areas, from the everyday to the highly technical health and legal areas.

When I was a public servant with the Department of Home Affairs, I was proud to be a CPSU union delegate. Towards the end of my time there, after the Albanese Labor government came to power, the then minister for home affairs, Clare O'Neil, came to announce that jobs in TIS that had been outsourced—jobs where people were working on insecure contracts—would be brought in-house. Dozens of people were given secure public service jobs, giving them certainty about their future and the ability to have a career path within the department.

It's so important that we recognise their hard work and the vital role that TIS plays in providing these services, because, without them, many people would be disenfranchised from the economic and cultural opportunities that come from being able to fully understand the language and the matters that they need to, to engage with government, engage with health care and engage with legal services. I commend this bill to the House.

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