MARK BUTLER MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING
MEMBER FOR HINDMARSH
ANDREW GILES MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CITIES AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP
MEMBER FOR SCULLIN
ABS figures released today reveal people born outside of Australia have an age-standardised COVID-19 mortality rate of more than double that of people born in Australia.
The figures showed people born in Southern and Eastern Europe had a COVID-19 mortality rate quadruple that of people born in Australia.
For people born in North Africa and the Middle East, the mortality rate was triple.
Throughout the pandemic, the Morrison-Joyce Government has consistently failed to protect multicultural communities.
Everyone deserves to have access to timely and accurate public health information to keep them and their families safe.
Instead, the Government has provided incoherent, and at times inaccurate, translations to CALD communities after relying on Google Translate to provide critical health messaging.
More than a year into the pandemic, critical information on the vaccine rollout was left months out of date, even as the Sydney outbreak of the virus worsened.
The Morrison-Joyce Government treated health translations as a tick and flick exercise.
This isn’t good enough.
Since March 2020, Labor has been calling on the Government to listen to multicultural communities and work with CALD community leaders to get the health messaging right.
Even now, the Government’s Vaccine Eligibility and Symptom Checkers do not include a wide range of languages to support all CALD communities.
The Morrison-Joyce Government has shown it is incapable of learning from the pandemic or listening to community voices, with tragic consequences.