The Guide: Implementing the Standards for Statistics on Cultural and Language Diversity
Introduction
At a meeting of the Ministerial Council of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (MCIMA) in May 1996, Commonwealth, State and Territory Ministers noted the problems associated with the use of the term 'non-English speaking background' (NESB) and agreed that the term and its acronym be dropped, where possible, from official communications.
NESB is no longer considered to be an appropriate measure of culturally related disadvantage, in terms of access to government services, for a variety of reasons:
- the term has many conflicting definitions;
- it groups people who are relatively disadvantaged with those who are not disadvantaged;
- it is unable to separately identify the many cultural and linguistic groups in Australian society;
and - it has developed negative connotations.
In summary, NESB is seen as an oversimplified indicator of disadvantage, which may result in inappropriate service provision and neglect the positive aspects of cultural and linguistic diversity.
Consequently, government agencies at all levels have increasingly sought to develop a more accurate, effective and consistent measure of cultural and language diversity.
The terms used to describe a particular group of people should be as specific and descriptive as possible to avoid the problems associated with NESB. Examples of terms for the purpose of describing particular groups include:
- migrants;
- people born overseas;
- people who do not speak English well;
- people born in the English Proficiency (EP) Country Groups1;
- children of people born in the EP Country Groups;
and - people born in a particular region (e.g. South Asia, North America, Africa) or country.
MCIMA and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) worked together to develop the new standards.
The ABS publication Standards for Statistics on Cultural and Language Diversity, Catalogue Number 1289.0 (the Standards) is designed to provide a comparative basis across Australia for government and non-government agencies when collecting data on cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
The Standards is based on four core variables and this combination of variables allows greater potential for precision in analysing issues of and equity, including determining whether government services are accessible to Australians of all cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
This is not to say that every variable is relevant to every data collection system.
1. There are four EP Country Groups. Recently-arrived migrants born in EP1 countries have the highest proportion of people who speak English well, while those born in EP4 countries have the lowest proportion.
DIMIA Statistics Section, 1996 Classification of Countries into English Proficiency Groups, Statistical Focus C96.1A Revised, April 1999.
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