Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today about the importance of the mother language in a community like mine. In the electorate of Lalor, people come from over 104 countries and there are over 50 languages spoken in schools and homes. Some of these languages are official national languages. Others are important regionally or culturally to communities that have made their way to Australia and live in my community.

I want to pay tribute today to the hard work that's done by the Victorian School of Languages and the department of education in setting up Saturday classes to accommodate the teaching of those languages to keep mother languages alive in our community. It's important because, although we have a national profile around literacy and numeracy, and we understand how important it is for our literacy levels to be high, it is equally important that, in this global society, we have as many bilingual and multilingual children as we can.

I'm very proud to say that when I was sitting in the principal's chair on the first occasion, I was involved with the Victorian School of Languages and the local Karen community in introducing the Karen language to the Victorian School of Languages in our school. This year, we will be celebrating the first year 12 class of Karen children graduating and will be launching new textbooks to assist with teaching. I look forward to many more of our community languages being taught in the Victorian School of Languages in my electorate.