Diaspora policy : a missing plank in Australia's multicultural policy portfolio

Governments attend to the needs of diasporas and diaspora communities in varied ways including through structured policies, provision of funding, and programmes, which in turn enable the development of networks and a thriving environment for the development of diasporas. Ensuring responsive and effective arrangements for diaspora members resident in Australia on either a temporary or a permanent basis, and for Australian nationals living overseas, is an area of public policy that has been consistently recommended by leading scholars and in multiple Parliamentary Inquiries over many decades. Measures such as policies, funding and targeted programmes would also offer a systematic and predictable approach to diaspora management across all levels of government. However, there has been a general reluctance to put in place permanent systems at federal, state or local levels to coordinate or manage diaspora affairs, as has been done in many other contexts including in countries that rely on immigration, for instance Canada and the USA, as well as in countries of sizeable out-migration, such as India and the Philippines. This chapter considers the implications of this inaction and queries the logic of lauding Australia as a highly diverse multicultural nation when it is unable to attend to the needs of diasporas beyond ad hoc funding. The impacts of keeping diaspora at arm’s length have become more pronounced during the Covid-19 pandemic and times of national attention on critical matters, such as Australia’s relationship with China. This chapter utilises a secondary data analysis methodological approach and draws extensively from a wide range of sources, including government statistics, policy documents and reports from relevant government inquiries and key inter-governmental agencies. It starts by setting out what is understood from the literature as to how diaspora development can be fostered through policy settings and the provision of platforms and spaces for meaningful engagement. As a country that relies heavily on immigration, Australia has developed numerous policies and programmes to address the needs of migrant and refugee communities to determine the size and composition of the immigration programme itself as well as efforts to support people to settle in the country. Many migrant and refugee communities go on to form associations that are involved in diaspora activities, as this edited collection highlights and as has been acknowledged in the most recent 2020 Senate Inquiry. In comparison with migration policy, the diaspora policy domain in Australia is less regulated and is characterised by an uncoordinated and ad hoc approach. There have also been moments of focus on the significant rates of out-migration of its nationals, but what remains is an absence of strategic governance of diasporas despite the potential areas for quick wins in the future to capitalise on the proven strength and reach of diaspora organisations