<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/13/pauline-hanson-one-nation-australia-immigration-lanuage-ntwnfb>
"For three years, makeshift English and maths classes in an Indonesian refugee
camp were the extent of Marziyah Razi’s education.
When Razi, who was born in Afghanistan and raised in Iran, arrived in Australia
as a 17-year-old with a basic understanding of English, she was hungry to
resume high school.
This year, Razi, now 28, was admitted as a lawyer.
“It was a dream that came true,” she says.
Last month, the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, used a nationally televised
speech to take aim at what she claimed was a “growing language problem which is
a function of immigration”, labelling it a risk to “social cohesion”. One
Nation’s policies include tightening Australia’s migration requirements by
mandating English-speaking for new arrivals.
Alongside her vision for a “monocultural” Australia, Hanson cited the 2021
census, saying that “one in four people, 23%, speak a language other than
English at home, the most common being Mandarin and Arabic”.
“How can you generate social cohesion if people can’t speak the language? In
that same census, 872,000 people self-reported as speaking English ‘not well’
or ‘not at all’,” Hanson said in her National Press Club address.
Those 872,000 people represent just 3.4% of Australia’s population, and include
more than 100,000 babies and toddlers.
For Razi, who speaks Farsi, Dari and English, the rhetoric undermines the
contributions of migrants, who “bring different skills, different values,
whether they know English or not”.
“Not everyone has the opportunity to learn English in their countries. When
they come here, they can learn English, just like myself, and they can
contribute back to the community,” she said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
