Just when things seemed to be returning to normal, an alarming spike in coronavirus cases has hit Victoria.
With community transmission spreading through security guards, GP clinics and large family gatherings, the state is scrambling to get things back under control.
Why did Victoria, a state which locked down harder and more cautiously than any other, get hit by a new spike? The answer could be down to changing behaviour as restrictions loosened, or sheer bad luck.
But the roots of this current spike, which has hit large migrant and refugee families, could lie in the cultural blind spots that have hindered our pandemic response from the very start.
Primarily white health experts, politicians and bureaucrats consistently failed to speak to culturally and linguistically diverse communities in a sensitive and appropriate way.
And Victorians are now paying the price.
Blind spots from the start
In the early days of the lockdown, Scott Morrison warned Australians they might not be able to see their grandparents for some months.
But how useful is that advice for the kind of multi-generational family units that are more common in many South Asian and Middle Eastern communities?
That example is one of the many ways primary messaging around the pandemic failed to speak to the diverse life experiences of Australians.
“Our messaging has been good if you speak English, are educated or live in a western nuclear family,” said Australian Catholic University social researcher Dr Jen Couch.
“But it hasn’t taken into account the lives that many migrant families live.”
UNSW epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws says far too much of the health focus failed to account for the way people’s individual responses to a pandemic are also influenced by social and cultural factors.
“When you’re in a multicultural country like Australia you can’t always assume that a one size fits all approach to a pandemic prevention works,” McLaws said.
The wrong message and the wrong people
Many recent virus vectors — meat processing workers at Cedar Meats, hotel security guards, large family gatherings in Melbourne — all involve people from non-English speaking backgrounds. Why didn’t the government’s messaging reach them?
State and federal governments say they’ve been translating materials, and consulting with community groups, but it may well be a question of too little too late. There have been reports going back to March about a lack of culturally-sensitive resources.
Astonishingly, the company communicating Victorian government information about confirmed cases only started using languages other than English on Monday, June 22. It was, they said, a blind spot.
One reason for this blind spot, says Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria chair Eddie Micallef, is a lack of ethnic diversity in government and health bureaucracy.
And that lack of awareness leads to outreach that may seem theoretically good but is in reality inadequate and tokenistic. For example, as the ABC pointed out this week, simply translating English health warnings, often written in clunky, formal language that is difficult to understand.
“Putting a leaflet in a letterbox and sending through a translation doesn’t mean it’s going to be read,” Micallef told Crikey.
And when many migrants, particularly the elderly, get their information from often dubious sources like Facebook, Whatsapp and WeChat, there’s a worry government messages are getting lost in the noise.
Couch says one way to improve communication is to change who governments speak to. In a study with the Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network, she found young people are critical in disseminating messaging in migrant communities, since they often have the best language skills, awareness of current affairs, and internet literacy.
But a lot of cultural consultation tends to focus on older community leaders, like religious figures. Couch says that while it is important to talk to these people, it means younger migrants who might be a more strategic target get sidelined.
A resurgence in racist rhetoric
Meanwhile, there are concerns the recent spike in Melbourne could lead to a spike in racial animosity towards migrant groups.
On Thursday, The Australian suggested a cluster was linked to a large family Eid celebration. Muslim groups are worried this framing could lead to a dangerous rise in Islamophobia. We’ve already seen a surge in anti-Asian racism throughout the pandemic.
And the media dog-whistling has already begun. Yesterday, News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt wrote that multiculturalism and racial diversity was to blame for Victoria’s new clusters.
Micallef says such finger-pointing is unhelpful and dangerous.
“The outbreak on the ships were mostly Anglo, and we didn’t stereotype their ethnic background,” he said.
“[Bolt] says diversity is the problem, but to draw that conclusion is a very long bow and involves a very distorted view of history and the way the world operates.”
More diversity, after all, might have helped Victoria.
Has Australia dropped the ball on coronavirus messaging? What do you think the government should do to improve? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
I usually spend a reasonable amount of time with groups of Muslim women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. They livein inner city Melbourne public housing ( or a number of them do). Communicating with them electronically or by phone I have found they have been aware from the early days of the need to not have large gatherings and to socially distance. It is probable that these messages get out to these groups through local information channels in public housing and other nearby agencies.
This may not be the case for those living in detached housing in the outer suburbs.
Also positions at places like meat works,Laverton Coles depot, positions like that of security guard are mostly filled with relatively recent arrivals to Australia possibly with limited English who are not in a position to stand up to their employers and may not have good community connections or access to information.
Appropriate or sufficient training could also be an issue. Two years ago, I went to an AFL pre-season game at Manuka Oval in Canberra. Aged 65, I was with my mate who was 67 at the time. We were both wearing thongs, shorts and polo shirts – neither had a bag.
From among all the people who did have bags over their shoulders and were wearing clothing that covered more than a t-shirt and shorts, the young security bloke, who had little English, gesticulated that I had been selected for a security check. As he patted me up and down and was able to detect the wallet and phone in the pocket of my shorts, I could not help but notice how many other spectators were walking past carrying bags.
I wrote to Manuka Oval about this the following Monday and received a cut-and-paste about non-discriminatory random selections for security checking.
I wrote back pointing out that a security guard who pulls out an overweight 65 year old wearing shorts, t-shirt and thongs clearly had either not received any training about what to look for when checking for security threats, or had not been listening or had not understood. Either way, Manuka Oval management had failed in its lip-service rhetorical commitment to protect patrons from a genuine terrorist threat.
You are not supposed to notice and certainly not point out things like that.
“..one way to improve communication is to change who governments speak to.” And who governments listen to.
What is needed is people with the knowledge, strength and determination that Pat Turner has. Her representations to the PM about the urgent need to protect Indigenous people, especially those who are older and have co-morbidity health problems, were made early and were heard.
Kudos to Pat for showing the way.
Surely this is another News Corp beat-up. It fits nicely into their war on multiculturalism, believing it a product of leftist elite. They were less damning of the early Aspen cluster.
Every state has diverse ethnic groups and not been similarly afflicted. Two outbreaks were inadequately dealt with in Victoria. At Cedar Meats there was a slow and inadequate response by health authorities and the health measures at some quarantine hotels were deficient. Infected staff employed by security firms have spread the virus into the suburbs, mostly on Melbourne’s fringes.
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“Astonishingly, the company communicating Victorian government information about confirmed cases only started using languages other than English on Monday, June 22. It was, they said, a blind spot.”
I couldn’t read this link as it’s paywalled, but I recall reading ( I can’t remember where, probably the Age) that the Victorian govt had only put out information in 53 languages whereas it should have been in 90 or so. So not so much a total lack of diversity, maybe an oversimplification of what was needed.