Chairperson’s Message

ECCV was delighted to have Parliamentary Secretary Josh Bull MP announce at our AGM on the 3rd December, $100,000 funding from the Victorian Government to bring the FECCA Conference to Melbourne in 2021, the first time since 2003.

The Melbourne FECCA Conference 2021 is an outstanding opportunity for the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria, its members and the broader community, to showcase the amazing multicultural capability we have in Victoria. With key roles to be played by Multicultural, Affairs, the Victorian Multicultural Commission and a broad range of organisations in the FECCA Conference, there is also the opportunity for broader national discussion and problem solving to the shortcomings migrant and refugee communities faced across Australia during the pandemic.

In Victoria, migrant and refugee communities have been overrepresented in the total number of infections and deaths, with the lack of a national multicultural strategy letting a large percentage of the Australian population down. There is a quickness to praise multiculturalism when we are celebrating culture, but the systems that support cultural and linguistic diversity in Australia have been left to lag over the last two decades, all the while our country has been become ever more multicultural, multifaith, multiracial and multilingual.

FECCA recently published a policy paper on CALD Data Collection, that showed that National Standards for recording Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Australia have not ben reviewed and updated since 1999! This is a fundamental part of the problem of why services today are not reflective of and responsive to the fabric of contemporary Australia.

 ECCV congratulates the Koorie community in Victoria for its work in keeping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lessons leant through the leadership of Aboriginal community controlled organisations, is an important example of how communities can meet the needs of their own communities, when governance structures and resourcing are aligned.

 The Victorian Government is rising to this challenge, announcing $19m in further funding through the CALD Communities Taskforce to support multicultural Victoria at this continuing delicate time. Noting that CALD Victorians are overrepresented in their feelings of vulnerability about the pandemic and underrepresented in their engagement with the public health response, a genuine collaborative effort needs to take place to address this.

 I was pleased to meet with the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University regarding their recently announced decision to cancel the teaching of three languages other than English from 2022: Greek, Hindi and Indonesian. The lack of a national multicultural strategy, is similarly reflected by the lack of a national languages policy, which is leaving Australian universities in the midst of a financial crisis having to make impossible commercial decisions about continuing to teach languages other than English. This is something that ECCV will be pursuing through FECCA in 2021.

 The recent announcement in the Victorian State Budget of $1.4m for the development of an anti-racism strategy, is welcome news to the ECCV, which has been calling for the development of a sustainable plan to address racism in our society. We look forward to working with the Victorian government and other communities on this in the coming months. On International Day for Human Rights on the 10^th December, we were pleased to announce two further partners in the ECCVs anti-racism campaign All One Together, Darebin City Council and Port Melbourne Soccer Club. We welcome both organisations and look forward to continuing to drive this work in 2021.

 On behalf of our Board, staff and volunteers, we wish you a safe and healthy festive season and a more positive, less stressful 2021. I thank you for your continuing commitment to multicultural Victoria.

Eddie Micallef

Chairperson