Creating Access and Equity: The Role of Language Services in a Multicultural Society with Leigh Cox
Leigh Cox
Director of Language Services Policy, Department of Home Affairs (Australia)
A Language Barrier Should Never Block Access to Essential Services
Leigh Cox is the Director of Language Services Policy at Australia's Department of Home Affairs. His team was established after representatives of the translation and interpreting sector met with the Australian government in November 2022 to raise concerns about declining service quality, unsustainable remuneration, and the impact on vulnerable individuals trying to see a doctor, get health advice, or go to court. The starting position: a language barrier or accessibility barrier, whether from a multicultural community, First Nations community, or deaf and hard of hearing, should never prevent someone from engaging with essential government services.
The Australian government spends approximately $400 million on language services over a five-year period, but procurement is piecemeal. Some agencies ask for quarterly reporting, others ask for none. There is no standardised approach to quality assurance, complaints, or remuneration. Leigh's team is working to refresh the existing language services guidelines into enforceable standards and to centralise procurement so that agencies are not all going to market independently with inconsistent requirements.
What a Geospatial Map of Prejudice Revealed
In 2015, while working in the multicultural affairs branch, Leigh's team was receiving thousands of pieces of correspondence from the public expressing hostility toward Muslim Australians. They received legal clearance to map the correspondence geospatially using postcode data and sentiment analysis. The finding: the majority of the strongest negative correspondence came from towns where diversity levels were exceptionally low. Most of the people who had concerns about Muslim Australians lived in areas where there were none. Without genuine opportunities to engage with people from diverse groups, people were forming their views entirely from sensationalised media.
Soccer, Kosovo Refugees, and the Spark
Leigh traces his passion to high school in Wodonga, a small country town on the Victoria-New South Wales border. During the Kosovo conflict, a couple of refugee kids were settled at his school. Through daily soccer tournaments on a patch of land with witch's hats for goals, Leigh formed a bond with these kids who could barely speak English. At the same time, he began to notice that people in the community, a nearly exclusively white small town at the time, were distrusting of these individuals who were in a tough situation trying to make something of their lives. That recognition of racial inequity propelled him through social sciences, community affairs, volunteering, and eventually into Australian government policy.
COVID Response in Papua New Guinea
In early 2021, Leigh was deployed to Papua New Guinea to support their COVID response. He worked with the PNG government and Australian medical teams to set up a temporary triage hospital at the main hospital, facilitate vaccine donations, and staff the facility with deployed doctors and nurses. Back in Australia, he continued working on vaccine awareness and uptake, funding local community and church groups in Pacific Island countries to help pastors, who are often the authority figures in small regional villages, better understand and communicate the intent of the vaccine. The approach was not about forcing decisions but about providing information in local languages so people could make their own reasoned and educated choices.
Transcreation Over Translation
Leigh's strongest observation on what is working: a shift away from literal word-for-word translation toward transcreation. Rather than forming the view that a whole document needs to be translated into Chinese, the question becomes: what would those communities actually need? How do they engage with this material? What are the core messages? Start from the bottom up to design something in language that will achieve the same outcome as the English version. There is growing engagement with this concept across Australian government and the sector more broadly.
Beyond Translation: The Native Experience Podcast is produced by LEXIGO, Australia's trusted translation and multicultural communication agency.
Beyond Translation: The Native Experience Podcast explores multicultural communication, translation, and culturally diverse engagement in Australia and beyond. Each episode features experts sharing real stories and practical insights on topics from multicultural campaign strategy to CALD community engagement and localisation best practices. Produced by LEXIGO, Australia's trusted translation and multicultural communication agency with triple ISO certification and NAATI certified translators across 171 languages.
Leigh: The intent of the language services work is at its core about access and equity. And our starting position as a team is really that a language barrier or an accessibility barrier, whether you are from a multicultural community, First Nations community, or might be deaf and hard of hearing, it should not be a barrier to your ability to engage with essential government services. So that is our starting position. And I think it is critical. What I am seeing that is working and we are seeing a lot more positive noise about is the idea of not simply translating something from top to tail from English into another language, which really goes to that point about transcreation.
Brian: Today we are with Leigh Cox, Director of Language Services Policy at the Department of Home Affairs. Leigh focuses on multicultural and social policy outcomes. His expertise lies in building partnerships and policy development to address complex challenges. His goal is to maximise the participation and inclusion of all members of our society. Leigh, welcome to The Native Experience.
Leigh: Such a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Brian: Tell us about yourself and what you are nerding out on right now.
Leigh: I have been working in the Australian public service for over 12 years. Prior to that, I did work in NGO settings and had a gig with the United Nations in Mexico City. My focus for the last few years has been on multicultural affairs and specifically on language policy, interpreting and translating services. In terms of nerding out, I am a bit of a footy nerd, AFL fan. I also enjoy a good detective crime fiction novel. I took some Michael Connelly books to Bali on a mini break.
Brian: Tell me more about your job and how you got into it.
Leigh: Around November 2022, a range of individuals working across the translation and interpreting sector got together with the Australian government and had a conversation about emerging issues impacting sustainability. Because there is not really a remuneration baseline and it has not been well regulated, service quality is dropping in some parts. It is impacting very vulnerable individuals' ability to see a doctor, get health advice, go to court. As a consequence, my team was established. We are the language services policy section.
Leigh: We have come together to validate those concerns, better understand what it all means, and work across the Australian government. A big part of our work has been forming closer relationships across government, with peak bodies like AUSIT and NAATI, Professionals Australia, and the interpreters unions. Now we are moving into a phase of, okay, we genuinely understand this issue. What can we collectively do about it?
Brian: Do you have solutions in mind?
Leigh: There are a couple of key areas ripe for reform. Firstly, the standards we set. We have language services guidelines but they are not well understood and in some cases are not being followed. We need to refresh those guidelines and make them more accepted standards that we can enforce through more regular reporting and compliance. One example would be ensuring we are using NAATI credentialed interpreters and translators where they exist.
Leigh: The other major one is procurement. We are spending something like $400 million on these services over a five-year period but doing it very piecemeal. Some agencies ask for quarterly reporting, some are not asking for reporting at all. There is no standardised approach to quality assurance, complaints, or remuneration. That procurement piece is probably the other really major one we can try to influence.
Brian: What drives your passion?
Leigh: It goes back to being a kid at high school. I grew up in a small country town called Wodonga at the top of Victoria. During the Kosovo conflict, a couple of refugee kids got settled in the school. A few of us were having daily soccer tournaments on a patch of land. Through that, I built a relationship with these kids. They could not really speak English well but there was such an amazing bond and a lot of laughter. Around that time, I started to perceive that people in the community, a small country town that was nearly exclusively white, were distrusting of these individuals who were in a really tough situation trying to make something of their lives. That stuck with me as having a burning desire around racial inequity and racial injustice. That propelled me throughout my career.
Leigh: Around 2015, I was working in the multicultural affairs branch. We were receiving a lot of correspondence from the public, thousands at the time, much of it negative toward Muslim Australians. We got permission to map the correspondence geospatially using postcode data and sentiment analysis. What we found was the majority of the really strong negative correspondence was coming from towns where the diversity levels were exceptionally low. Most of the people that had concerns about Muslim Australians lived in an area where there were none. They were probably learning about these groups through sensationalised media. If that is all you are consuming and you are not having a genuine opportunity to engage with someone different to you, it is really easy to fall into those pockets.
Brian: What were your experiences during COVID?
Leigh: I worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and was deployed to Papua New Guinea in early 2021 to support their COVID response. I was involved in facilitating the donation of vaccines and setting up a temporary triage hospital at the main hospital with Australian doctors and nurses. We were working to triage PNG population experiencing COVID symptoms into a different part of the hospital so they were not engaging with older people visiting for other issues.
Leigh: Back in Australia, I continued supporting vaccine awareness and uptake, funding local community and church groups particularly in Pacific Island countries. In many small regional villages, pastors are considered the authority figure. We took a partnership approach, educating the educator, and being there to support people if they chose to be vaccinated. People may have still chosen not to and that is okay. But others were very appreciative of having information in their own languages so they could make a more reasoned and educated decision.
Brian: What are your thoughts on access and equity? What works and what does not?
Leigh: The intent of the language services work is at its core about access and equity. Our starting position is that a language barrier should not prevent someone from engaging with essential government services. What I am seeing work is a lot more engagement with the idea of not simply translating something word for word from English into another language. Rather than forming the view that we need to translate this whole document into Chinese, thinking about what those communities need. How do they engage with the material? What are the core messages? Starting from the bottom up to design something in language that achieves the same outcome.
Leigh: What is not working is a set-and-forget mentality. Someone makes a decision that we need interpreters, does a quick Google, pays a provider, but does not think about whether they need NAATI credentialed interpreters. I have seen cases where a language service provider used staff who are offshore, not NAATI certified, and have no local context for the issues an individual needs to engage with. They would not understand Medicare or how the GP system works. Our team has been set up to deal with this by setting clear standards of engagement.
Brian: Any parting advice?
Leigh: Believe in your ability to foster change. You do not need to be an expert. I am not an expert and there is a lot I do not know. But what I recognise is that a lot of experts are not necessarily talking or collaborating. So the role I can play is to bring those groups together. This government has introduced a value around stewardship: coming into a job or a role and trying to leave the sector better than when you arrived. You are never going to get everything perfect. That is okay. But when you have a mindset around betterment, everyone is better for it.
Brian: Leigh, thank you. I appreciate the conversation.
Leigh: Thanks for making this happen. I have really got a lot out of it too.
Brian: Leigh Cox, Director of Language Services Policy at the Department of Home Affairs. Remember, always strive for authenticity and embrace the power of native experiences.