The report says the main threat to the future of community languages - and to Australia more broadly - is the loss of languages in the second and third generations of migrant communities. Australia places a low priority on learning languages other than English, compared to many other countries and it is particularly evident in the New South Wales education system. This could put Australia at a financial disadvantage in the future, as language skills are increasingly contributing to economic growth.
If we're looking at groups that have much higher rate of maintaining their language in the third generation, then we're looking at the Greek, for example, then about 30 per cent of the third generation say that they can speak their own language and English well and we are looking at the census data. And then for example, Macedonian 38 per cent say that they speak their own language and English well, and also Vietnamese, 46 per cent.
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