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Media

National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia

Achievements

To date the Commonwealth has pursued these goals through a variety of mechanisms, several of which are detailed in those parts of the National Agenda dealing with Basic Rights, and Language and Communication. Indeed the extensive process of community consultation used in the development of the National Agenda, served to promote better understanding of multicultural issues. The Government has also:

  • actively promoted multiculturalism as a policy. it has, for example, established the Office of Multicultural Affairs in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs;

  • maintained the Special Broadcasting Service as a discrete entity, with the objective of giving expression to the multicultural and multilingual character of Australian society. The SBS's budget has been guaranteed in real terms for three years;

  • increased funding for ethnic public broadcasting from $0.688 million in 1987-88 to $1.138 million in 1988-89, awarded two new ethnic broadcasting licenses in Perth and Melbourne, and increased funding for Aboriginal public broadcasting by $100,000 bringing it up to $250,000 in 1988-89;

  • through the activities of various agencies - including the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission - sought to promote greater understanding and acceptance of the meaning and implications of Australia's diversity of cultures and peoples;

  • through the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal promoted a more responsible and sensitive approach by the electronic media to the multicultural character of Australian society.

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