ADVOCACY
AUSIT Fellow Patricia Evelin Arguello de Avila is the inaugural chair of AUSIT’s Advocacy Committee, formed in 2024. In this article she tells us how and why she became an advocate for interpreters in Queensland, and how she goes about being one, and she urges colleagues to get involved as advocates in their own states.
Every meeting I’ve attended has been an opportunity to slowly educate peers …
Finances. Recognition. Influence –
these are the three words chosen by our National President, Carl Gene Fordham, to depict his vision for AUSIT. Advocacy is an excellent way to promote recognition and exert influence.
Definitions of advocacy …
… from the Oxford Dictionary:
“Advocacy is the act of supporting a cause, policy, or group of people through arguments or actions.”
… and from AI Overview (please don’t unfriend me! – I really like this AI contribution):
“Advocacy … is the act of speaking up for a person, group, or cause. It can also involve helping people understand their rights and participate in decisions that affect them.”
Advocating for my chosen profession, interpreting, is one of my life’s passions. It’s something I’ve been involved in since … forever … but more pointedly since 2017, when the Queensland Government introduced a new procurement system for interpreting services.
Much to our regret, the new system seemed to turn Queensland-based community interpreters fully into gig workers, and encouraged language service providers (LSPs) into a race to the bottom with regards to remuneration and working conditions – and it soon became clear that these were going backwards.
At the time, through my 34-year experience of working and exchanging information with NGOs and community organisations in Australia, I was aware that very few of the people I was dealing with really understood the role and responsibilities of professional interpreters – and less were aware of AUSIT and what we do.
Some of us set out to use our positions on different volunteer boards and community committees as avenues to inform others about, and engage them with, the ‘new reality’ for the community interpreters who make up a great chunk of AUSIT’s membership.
Fast forward to 2025, and I’m frustrated to realise how little people know, still, about what we do, how much education we need to have, and what skills we need to possess, to perform at the level of our communities’ expectations.
I’m often invited to attend meetings of both government and non-government agencies, representing either consumers or practising interpreters, and I’ve made a conscious decision that my presence will be an avenue to inform these groups about our work as interpreters (and translators), and how we deserve to be treated as the professionals we are. I also proactively identify relevant stakeholder groups that would benefit from sound advice and opinion on our sector, and ask to be included in any of their conversations that touch on interpreting.
Every meeting I’ve attended has been an opportunity to slowly educate peers on what it means to be a professional interpreter. I explain that we need to not only know and understand medical or legal terminology, but be very conversant with how the broader society in which we live functions, and to know our stakeholders well, as well as our rights and responsibilities, and the overarching ethical behaviours expected of us when delivering interpreting services. I also present examples of how risky it is to provide untrained, untested or unqualified people to ‘interpret.’ Plus I promote the work AUSIT does, and our aims in terms of PD – for example, improving the skills of interpreters working with CaLD communities.
In my experience, when you present good evidence on the topic of your advocacy, others are persuaded of the needs highlighted, and become willing to support the improvements suggested for the area. And if you can demonstrate how everyone can benefit from the improvements sought, those across the table from you start listening, and change happens.
Participating in meetings has given rise to valuable AUSIT PD sessions, delivered in collaboration with various bodies including domestic and family violence centres, medical and mental health groups, the Australian Taxation Office and others.
I’ve been a member of NAATI’s Queensland Regional Advisory Committee (NAATI QLD RAC) for almost 30 years now. The QLD RAC member organisations include Services Australia, the University of Queensland, the state’s Justice and Attorney General’s Department, the Australasian Association of Language Companies, Multicultural Affairs Queensland, the Institute of Modern Languages, ASLITA, Mater Health Services and AUSIT, all very important stakeholders in our sector.
My role within the QLD RAC isn’t to represent a particular group. I’m there as a senior T&I practitioner, and my responsibility is to relate my experiences and to be an active – and proactive – advocate on behalf of community interpreters, alerting RAC members to what’s going on ‘at the coalface,’ especially anything that could have an impact on T&I practitioners in the state.
Working with Jim Duncan, Regional Operations Manager, NAATI QLD and representatives for AUSIT (Carina Mackenzie, now QLD Branch Chair) and ASLITA (Dr Danielle Ferndale, now President), it became evident that community interpreters were not being recognised as professionals. We were concerned about the number of NAATI-certified interpreters leaving the profession, so we worked with the University of Queensland to conduct a formal satisfaction survey of this practitioner cohort in our state. Published in 2022, our report – not surprisingly – showed much dissatisfaction, which helped those around the table at the NAATI QLD RAC realise that the situation needs fixing.
In 2023, an extensive Deloitte Access Economics review of the interpreting profession in Australia* also highlighted an unacceptable level of sub-optimal interpreting occurring in Australia, and showed that this is costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars per year, while the report from the 2024 Multicultural Framework Review conducted by the Department of Home Affairs** was not very optimistic about the state of affairs with regards to community interpreting in Australia.
Over recent years I‘ve taken advantage of other opportunities for advocacy and promotion of AUSIT and its members to raise interpreters’ profile in the medical and legal spheres.
I volunteer on a few Queensland Health ‘community partnership’ committees, including the Metro South Consumer Partnership’s Sub-committee on Cancer Care, through which I’ve participated in organising interpreter-specific training on working with people who have cancer. On Saturday, 4 June 2022 more than 60 interpreters attended Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital for a day-long PD seminar on cancer titled Cancer Training Workshop for Interpreters: what it is, how it’s treated, medications used, and much more essential knowledge for an interpreter working in the area, including a very interactive session on the ethics of interpreting and their application in this context, which attendees appreciated greatly.
If I had a magic wand, I’d make my dream a reality: I’d spirit one of us into every group …
If you ‘know your stuff,’ and … have ideas on how things can be done better, why not take an active role in bringing about change?
I also sit on the Community Council of the state’s Metro South Primary Health Network (PHN), which discusses health issues concerning the community at large. Since I began attending PHN meetings, the needs of CaLD members of the community are being more systematically addressed – in fact, improving the quality of interpreting services in Metro South hospitals and health facilities throughout the state now features as one of the four main priorities of the PHN. This can only be a good thing for the profession, and for AUSIT!
The unrelenting advocacy of a small group of Queensland practitioners who tirelessly promote and educate users of our interpreting services has had one very important result over time. By pointing out the inconsistencies in how we’re treated, and the lack of recognition of T&I practitioners as professionals, we’ve successfully lobbied for a new and extensive review of community interpreting in our state, which is happening ‘as I write’. We don’t know what – if any – changes this review will bring about, but we do know that a revised SOA will be provided, one that will perhaps engender better treatment and recognition of T&I practitioners.
So, we’ve shown that just as a series of drops of water can slowly but surely reshape the contours of a rock, if we’re determined and patient in pursuing issues that we deem important, advocacy and networking can induce changes and positive results for our profession over time.
I’m sure we’ve all cringed from time to time on coming across ‘guidelines’ on how to work with interpreters, for example, or hearing misinformation about our role, only to discover that whoever wrote the guidelines or was speaking had no idea of interpreting ethics, training and skills. If I had a magic wand, I’d make my dream a reality: I’d spirit one of us into every group that decides anything related to T&I practitioners in Australia, to help guide them into writing smarter language/T&I services policy. In other words: ‘Nothing about us, without us’!
So, I’d like to invite – no, urge – my fellow AUSIT members, especially those of you with experience on branch committees, to consider representing the organisation – and T&I practitioners in general – at stakeholder groups in your own states. It’s about time we start ‘infiltrating’ these groups, to ensure that the policies they dictate about our work is sound and well informed. It’s up to us – if you ‘know your stuff’ and, most importantly, have ideas on how things can be done better, why not take an active role in bringing about change?
You’ll need to find the relevant groups and stakeholders in your state – I’ve listed some at the end of this article.*** The Advocacy Committee can supply letters that your AUSIT state branch can send to these organisations’ boards, encouraging them to facilitate your participation on their standing/steering committees.
And it’s not rocket science, by the way – at first, all you may be called to do is to observe, listen, and learn what the aims of the specific committee are. Then when you feel more confident, you can start informing others on what an interpreter or a translator does, and the high degree of all-around professionalism needed to do it well. That’s for starters, other topics will become obvious to you as you move forwards.
One byproduct of advocacy is the many like-minded people you get to know in the various groups you join, and the learning you acquire by merely spending a few hours with them every couple of months. And who knows? … some personal and/or professional gain may result from your exposure, from people getting to know you and what you can offer. But these are not the main benefits – the most gratifying is the feeling that comes from giving back to your community by playing an important part in improving professional life for yourself and your colleagues.
To sum up, with regards to Carl’s vision (and I note that brilliant suggestions have already been made on how to improve AUSIT’s finances): recognition and influence start with every one of us and how we advocate for AUSIT, and for our professionalism as community interpreters and translators.
So don’t hesitate, contact your AUSIT state branch today to sign up as an advocate and start exerting your influence to advance AUSIT and our profession! ACT /NSW / QLD / SA/NT / TAS / VIC / WA
If you’d like a chat with me before committing to volunteer, email me via the AUSIT Advocacy Committee, give your phone number, and I’ll give you a call.
* Read the executive summary of Deloitte’s review: Economic analysis of interpreting services: Final report.
** Read the Department of Home Affairs’ review: Towards Fairness – a multicultural Australia for all.
*** Some bodies to ‘infiltrate’ in each state include: the Ethnic Communities Council, the Health Department’s various consumer groups, the NAATI RAC, and management boards of settlement agencies (in Queensland we have Multicultural Australia, Settlement Services International (SSI) and Multilink QLD). If you can think of other bodies, either in your state or around the country, please email their names / contacts to Patricia via the AUSIT Advocacy Committee.
Originally from El Salvador, AUSIT Fellow Patricia Evelin Arguello de Avila went to school in Washington, DC. Living with her aunt, the head translator for the World Bank’s magazine Finances & Development, she developed a passion for interpreting and translating that has led to a life-long professional career, based in Brisbane. Patricia is a NAATI-certified Spanish interpreter specialising in legal and medical interpreting. She also holds a diploma in legal studies and is an Associate Member of the QLD Law Society. She currently chairs AUSIT’s Advocacy Committee, as well as representing AUSIT and her profession to numerous state-based bodies.
