The year 2012 brought the appointment of the first federal Multicultural Affairs Minister in Australia in five years.
Australian Capital Territory senator Kate Lundy took on the position in March, becoming the first such minister since Senator Amanda Vanstone in the Howard Government.
But the Federal Opposition and some migrant-policy experts have questioned how big an impact the appointment has actually made on the Gillard Government's policy agenda.
Michael Kenny reports.
As part of a cabinet reshuffle, Senator Lundy was appointed as minister both for multicultural affairs and for sport after the resignation of former sport minister Mark Arbib.
In one of her first speeches as the new Multicultural Affairs Minister, Senator Lundy said she wanted to use the role to promote Australia's cultural diversity.
"We need to celebrate the great things about the differences between us, as well as reminding ourselves of all things that unite us as a country. But we have a great reputation overall for welcoming people from all over the world to become part of Australia, but bringing with them their cultural experience and their cultural heritage, and we're all richer for it."
Senator Lundy has launched new programs and reports on racism, promoting cultural diversity in the workplace and advising migrants wanting to access loans and credit cards.
She says she seeks a whole-of-government approach to multiculturalism, aimed at ensuring government responds to the needs of those from non-English speaking backgrounds.
The Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia says the Government has shown a willingness to focus on that.
He cites what he calls its positive response to an Access and Equity panel's recommendations after an inquiry in June.
That panel found federal agencies were not doing enough to effectively engage with Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds.
It called for greater use of interpreters and periodic performance audits for agencies on their work with migrant communities.
FECCA chairman Pino Migliorino says he would like to see the Minister go much further in promoting cultural diversity in the workforce.
He says that could include greater efforts to promote more Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds into leadership roles in government agencies.
Mr Migliorino says he believes much more could be done to promote a whole-of-government approach to multiculturalism across a range of portfolios.
"There are some really big policy areas which we still need to champion, in terms of making sure that they do understand diversity. And they go from children and family services (to) a range of employment services, housing, education and the reconstitution of languages other than English as an important part of our society. We've certainly made some gains, but there's still a lot to do, and those policy areas are ones which we can do it in."
Senator Lundy concedes one area in which the government could do more work is aged care.
After a speech in September, she urged more effort to ensure migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds could access culturally appropriate aged-care services.
"I think that, obviously, (some) people were very well connected in their communities and were very confident, both within their families and their communities, that they would be looked after. Others clearly needed those connections or felt that those connections were lacking. So that's a really important heads-up for everyone in the community to take a little more care and pay a little more attention to what older people are going through."
The Federal Opposition believes another area the Government has neglected is migrant and refugee resettlement services.
The Opposition says weak border-protection policies by Labor have made it focus much of its budget on immigration detention because of asylum seekers arriving by boat.
The Opposition's counterpart to the Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration, Michaelia Cash, says a Coalition government would immediately change that.
She says it would reintroduce policies that had stopped the flow of asylum-seeker boats in the past, including reinstating temporary-protection visas.
Senator Cash says that would let a Coalition government shift its budget priorities to providing strong migrant- and refugee-resettlement services.
"Effectively, what we have seen now is, because there has been such an influx of boats, the system is crashing. When a system crashes, you need to put resources into fixing the system. Those resources have to come from somewhere. They are taken from somewhere else. So in stopping the boats, we will be able to allocate back to various programs money that's currently been taken away. So what you'll see from a future Coalition government is actually restoring integrity to our borders, but not only that, putting back into those programs that which has currently been taken by a Labor government."
An academic specialising in multicultural studies says, while the Gillard Government has done some good work over the past year, there are still areas where it is failing.
University of Western Australia professor Farida Fozdar, a specialist in multiculturalism, says one of Senator Lundy's most significant achievements has been to launch the National Anti-Racism Strategy.
The first year of the three-year campaign has focused on raising public awareness about racism in Australia.
The Government has committed itself to working with community groups over subsequent years to develop specific resources aimed at tackling the problem.
But Professor Fozdar says the Government must do more in other policy areas to ensure new migrants can access culturally appropriate services.
She specifically points to employment, health and housing.
She says the lack of affordable housing is a particularly acute problem for migrants and refugees who settle in capital cities.
"It's becoming unaffordable for large chunks of the population generally, but particularly for people from refugee backgrounds and some groups of new migrants. It's very difficult to get into housing, and some dedicated assistance, in terms of helping people to understand the way the housing system works here and so on, would be most welcome."
Discussion around the future direction of multiculturalism has also figured prominently in a federal parliamentary inquiry that held public hearings around Australia in 2012.
The Joint Standing Committee on Migration was expected to conclude its inquiry into multiculturalism and release a report earlier this year.
However, a spokesman for the committee secretariat says no definitive date has been set for the release of the report.
The terms of reference include looking at the diaspora communities' contribution to Australia's relationships with Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
The committee's chairwoman, Greek-born Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou, believes the inquiry offers a good opportunity.
She says the major political parties could unite around a common definition of what multiculturalism means in the Australian context.
"It doesn't mean ghettos, and it doesn't mean carving out separate lives and parallel lives to everybody else. And, indeed, 40 years of multiculturalism policy has not delivered that in Australia. In fact, on the contrary, it's delivered a very cohesive society."
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