Indigenous Interpreting Services Needed For WA

Following a report submitted to the State Government, Hon Wendy Duncan, Member for Mining and Pastoral Region has announced that she believes Indigenous language interpreting services need to be extended to cover the whole of Western Australia.

The report submitted to the State Government by the Equal Opportunity Commissioner Yvonne Henderson found that one in five Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders living in remote Western Australia have difficulty understanding or being understood by service providers.

The report cites the pressing need for an interpreting service to bridge communication gaps in the areas of health and justice, particularly in the Kimberley, Pilbara and Goldfields.

Ms Duncan believes that the service will provide a much needed balance of communication.

“English is often the second or even third language remote Aboriginal communities speak, which makes it difficult for them to understand the professional jargon used by service providers.

An indigenous language interpreting model will remove the barriers Aboriginal people can face when working with official channels,” Ms Duncan says.

At present the Kimberley Interpreting Service (KIS) is the only organisation assisting Aboriginal people when they have to deal with health, legal or other government agencies.

“Last year I met with the KIS representatives who described to me some of the things that can go wrong due to communication break down.”

“One tragic outcome was the death of a child when the mother gave her child medicine to swallow when it should have been applied to the skin,” says Ms Duncan.

A letter of support by Ms Duncan was recently sent to the Ngalia Foundation as they seek funding to initiate important “Wati” language services.

The Ngalia Foundation hopes to engage suitable linguists to provide translating services and document the different languages in the Goldfields Region.