Mr ANDREWS (7:36 PM) —I take the opportunity tonight to commend the government, particularly the Minister for Aged Care, the Hon. Bronwyn Bishop, for the recent announcement of funding for the Australian Greek Welfare Society of Victoria and also for the Italian equivalent in Victoria, Co. As. It. Under the new funding arrangements, the Australian Greek Welfare Society will receive $109,000 and Co. As. It some $98,000 from the Department of Health and Aged Care. The purpose of these grants is being negotiated with the two organisations to ensure the focus is primarily on meeting the needs of older Australians.

Having both a large Italian and Greek community within my electorate, many of whom are ageing and many of whom have a vital need of these services, I regard this as an opportunity to say something about them. Tonight, in the brief time available, I will say a few words about the Greek Australian community within my electorate, of which there are some 4,000 people. There are a number of striking things about this community. They make up an extremely homogeneous group. They are less likely than many other ethnic groups to marry outside their community. They consequently preserve the language and traditions that often make them more Greek than the Greeks in Greece. They also demonstrate a tremendous sense of family and of community, far and away beyond that which we see in many other communities. For example, you have only to glance at the electoral roll to see how whole extended families take root and spread out through one area.

The problems associated with an ageing population which apply to Australia as a whole are even more pronounced for some of our established ethnic communities, and certainly within the Greek Australian community. In the Greek community in Australia, over 40 per cent of the population is over 60 years of age. The median age of the Greece born people in Australia, as at the 1996 census, was 54.7 years compared to 44.2 years for all overseas born Australians and 34 years for the total Australian population. In Victoria alone, there are 13,941 Greek speaking people aged 65 to 74 and 4,098 in the over-75 age group. This latter group is estimated to peak at almost 16,000 by 2021.

Many of the older members of the Greek community began work immediately after coming to Australia and have largely gone without the educational opportunities they worked so assiduously to give to their children. This, together with the strong community-centredness of our Australian Greek people, has resulted in a lack of English language facility—33.9 per cent of Greece born Australians speak little or no English. Therefore, they need education and information about the provision of government services in their own language. They need supportive intermediaries to liaise with government officials and also with professionals in the community. The Australian Greek Welfare Society does all this—informing, liaising and advocating for this group of people. The society receives many referrals from mainstream services: for example, liaising between doctors, hospitals and mental health centres and their middle aged to elderly Greek patients. It provides emergency relief and counselling services, particularly in the event of family breakdown due to domestic violence, separation and divorce. It deals with other social problems such as gambling problems in the community. The society also offers a fortnightly legal information and referral service.

It is important that our older Greek Australians—like other older Australians, whether they are born in this country or are from other ethnic backgrounds—are not deprived, due to language and cultural difficulties, of the assistance and services available to the rest of the population. In the case of the Greeks in Victoria—in Melbourne in particular—this service is certainly provided by the Australian Greek Welfare Society. So, as I said at the outset, I commend the government for these grants, because they will be used in a way which is very beneficial to many people.