18 August 2008

The NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) will offer voting assistance in 24 community languages to meet the specific needs of people from a culturally and linguistically diverse background.  

The assistance will be in the form of interpreter services, the publication of elector information in specific languages and an advertising campaign in key community media.

Voting assistance guides are available in community languages through the commission’s website (elections.nsw.gov.au) and will be in printed form at all polling places across the State.

The guide has been translated into Arabic, Assyrian, Chinese, Croatian, Greek, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Macedonian, Maltese, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese.

“Voters can also call the 13 14 50 telephone interpreter service to arrange for an interpreter in any language to join in a three-way conversation with an election official to answer any questions they may have,” said NSW Electoral Commissioner Colin Barry.

“We are also in the process of recruiting staff who speak a community language to work at polling places on Election Day.”

A multilingual poster will be displayed in more than 2,200 polling places indicating the community languages spoken by election officials.

The NSWEC will also produce several newsletters in the lead-up to the 2008 to be distributed through the NSW Community Relations Commission’s networks. The newsletters are available on the NSWEC website.

“We are also running an extensive elector information campaign in 12 languages to increase general awareness and understanding of the election leading up to voting day on Saturday 13, September.

“This will involve advertising in 15 community newspapers and on SBS radio and community radio networks.”

For enquiries in languages other than English call our interpreting service on 13 14 50.

Media Contact: Adrian Kerr, NSW Electoral Commission

(02) 9290 5954 adrian.kerr@elections.nsw.gov.au