Victoria Police serves a community that is rich in multi-faith, multiculturalism and diversity – we celebrate its strength and value. Our aim is that the make-up of our workforce reflects the diversity in the Victorian community, with benefits stretching into every aspect of our work.

The experience of our CALD employees tells us about our workplace culture and is ultimately reflected in our service delivery.

Over the last decade we have made progress towards becoming a multicultural organisation. We have uplifted our capability and our organisation is stronger and more agile as a result. However our CALD employees continue to experience barriers that we are determined to remove.

Since launching the CALD Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan 2018–2021 (2018–2021 Action Plan), Victoria Police has examined our cultural policing practices and history with CALD communities in several ways.

The lessons from independent reviews and self-examination informs our CALD Inclusion Action Plan 2023–2024 (Action Plan) and contributes to building a safe and inclusive workplace for all employees.

This action plan commits us to the specific actions we must take to achieve our goal of a having a diverse workforce and being an inclusive organisation as outlined in the Framework.

Our long-term outcomes focused approach ensures progress is continually monitored and creates accountability.

The actions in this plan build upon the progress made from the 2018–2021 action plan and are informed by evidence-based assessments of our performance and employee engagement. This action plan is the next step to creating a safe place to work, free of racism and prejudice.

Strategic environment

We work towards our vision consistent with Victorian and Commonwealth multicultural policies and the legislative framework including:

• Multicultural Australia – United, Strong Successful – Australia’s multicultural statement renews and re-affirms the Commonwealth Government’s commitment to multiculturalism with a clear message on the values and responsibilities that underpin Australian society.
• Victoria’s Multicultural Policy Statement provides a whole of Victorian government framework that recognises and values the cultural, racial, religious and linguistic diversity of the peoples of Victoria.
• The Victoria Police CALD Inclusion Strategy is underpinned by legislation and regulations:
  • The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 prohibits behaviour that incites or encourages hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule against another person or group of people because of their race or religion.
  • Under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 all Victorian Government departments and service providers have a positive duty to take reasonable and proportionate measures to identify and eliminate discrimination.
  • The Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (s19) sets out the basic rights of Victorians to live with freedom, respect, equality and dignity; and requires public authorities to act compatibly with the Charter.
  • The Multicultural Victoria Act 2011 recognises in its preamble that a central tenet of multiculturalism is citizenship, not limited to formal Australian citizenship and including the rights and responsibilities of all people in a multicultural society.
  • Victoria Police Act 2013 is the primary legal instrument regulating the objectives, structure and powers of Victoria Police.
  • Public Administration Act 2004 places an obligation on public sector employers to establish processes to ensure employment decisions are based on merit, employees are treated fairly and reasonably, equal employment opportunity is provided, human rights are upheld, employees have access to reasonable avenues of redress, and a career in public service is fostered.

Our work to improve inclusion for all employees will also be advanced by the Equal, Safe and Strong Victoria Police Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2030, through the Equal, Safe and Strong Victoria Police Gender Equality Action Plan 2022–2024 (Equal, Safe and Strong).

Equal, Safe and Strong is driving Victoria Police employee equality by applying an intersectional lens that acknowledges the many different forms of discrimination causing disadvantage, including discrimination encountered by CALD employees.

We review our strategic approach to providing a safe and accessible workplace in response to national and Victorian initiatives and reviews as they occur.

Understanding CALD

The phrase CALD is a broad term used to describe communities with diverse languages, ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, traditions, societal structures and religions.²

Victoria Police defines CALD people as those who exhibit one or more of the attributes listed below and are born overseas or with at least one parent born overseas in countries other than those classified as “main English-Speaking Countries (MESC)", but including the indigenous peoples of South Africa, Canada and America, the Maori, the Celtics, and other communities that are marginally represented by proportion in the Victoria Police workforce when compared to the census data on population for Victoria.³

• ethnic heritage
• language spoken at home other than English
• culture/traditions as indicated by country of birth (self/parent) and religion.⁴

Intersectionality

Being CALD is only one aspect of a person’s identity.

CALD people are diverse within their own experiences of ethnic heritage, languages spoken and cultures, but are also diverse in other ways. This might include their gender identity, sexual orientation, refugee or asylum seeker background, migration or visa status, faith, ability, age, mental health, socioeconomic status, housing status or geographic location.

People within CALD communities who live with other forms of discrimination can experience compounded inequality.

Where are we at for CALD inclusion?

Victoria Police participates in the Victorian Public Sector Commission’s People Matter Survey. The survey provides valuable insight into our culture and safety from employee perspectives.

In 2021, 6,889 Victoria Police employees responded to the People Matter Survey.⁵

In 2021, Victoria Police’s primary human resources IT system was enhanced to capture data about each employee’s sex, gender, sexuality, languages, culture, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status and if a person has a disability.

The Victoria Police Diversity Report data June 2022

The Victoria Police Workforce Diversity Report shows that as at 30 June 2022:

• 93 languages are spoken by our employees
• The top main non-English language spoken by employees is Hindi (198 employees)
• Our employees are from 110 countries
• 15.56% of employees are CALD
• 14.34% of women employees are CALD
• 16.23% of men employees are CALD.

^{2 Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria 2012, ECCV Glossary of Terms, viewed 14 April 2022, https://eccv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2-ECCV_Glossary_of_Terms…
3 There is a separate Aboriginal Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan for the Indigenous Peoples of Australia.
4 Victoria Police (2018), 2018–2021 CALD Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan, Victoria.
5 Rounding of percentages: People Matter Survey round numbers up or down to their nearest whole percentage. This means some percentages may not add up to 100 per cent.}

The 2018–2021 action plan helped lay the foundation for Victoria Police to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation.

The VP CALD Council was established in January 2019 to:

• promote policies and strategies and days of significance for CALD employees
• provide peer-to-peer support
• and advise on employment, inclusion and retention of CALD people within Victoria Police.

Victoria Police has implemented a range of initiatives resulting in noticeable improvement in CALD employee recruitment and inclusion.

As at June 2022, 3,450 or 15.56 per cent of Victoria Police employees are from CALD backgrounds.

Notable achievements

The Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program

The Victoria Police Diversity Recruitment Program is a pilot program originally focusing on African applicants. Under this action plan the pilot program will be expanded to include all CALD applicants.

In 2020 and 2021, 13 participants of the program graduated from the Victoria Police Academy.

The School Based Traineeship Program

The School Based Traineeship Program continues to give students in CALD communities supported work experience at police stations.

CALD young people are recruited to the program by Skillinvest.

Victoria Police CALD employee networks

Victoria Police has established employee networks including:

• the VP CALD Council
• Sikh Employee Network
• Victoria Police African Employee Network
• Victoria Police Jewish Network
• Victoria Police Muslim Association
• Victorian Hellenic Police Association, and
• Victoria Police Women of Colour Network.

Expanding the definition of workplace harm

The definition of workplace harm has been expanded on the OneLink intranet page.

OneLink provides confidential, impartial, person-centred support to employees impacted by workplace harm.

Training and presentations specifically include harassment and discrimination based on culture.

OneLink continues to be refined to improve reporting on trends associated with workplace harm to CALD employees.

The evaluation of the 2018–2021 CALD strategy and action plan provided critical insights into where we need to improve and where our efforts must be focused to continue our work towards an inclusive workforce. The evaluation and our benchmarking exercises found areas requiring focus to improve our capability:

Capability development

Capability uplift is needed for all staff across the organisation, particularly for recruitment teams, supervisors and managers.

Career development opportunities for CALD employees

• CALD employees would benefit from greater consideration in career development frameworks throughout the employee lifecycle.
• The CALD mentoring program needs stronger support for its implementation.

Workplace safety

Safety must be a key area of focus.

There must be accountability for those who choose to use racism and religious discrimination to enact workplace harm.

There is also an opportunity to improve our cultural awareness and understanding within our response to workplace harm.

Governance

There is insufficient governance and authorising frameworks to monitor progress and to support access and inclusion.

CALD on the Inclusion Continuum

The Diversity and Inclusion Program Logic (Appendix 1) provides a schematic representation of how Victoria Police will work towards a truly diverse workplace and inclusive organisation.

The program logic will provide the strategic framework to map future progress through targeted outcomes and action plans.

The program logic sets out how we will progress along the Inclusion Continuum, a visual model, which was recently updated to identify five stages on a development continuum. Each stage describes the diversity and inclusion consciousness and culture of an organisation regarding diversity and inclusion.⁶

The 2018–2021 Action Plan used the Inclusion Continuum as a measure of our progress on our journey to becoming an inclusive organisation.

In 2018, we considered that the organisation was between the proactive and redefining (recently updated to be renamed ‘progressive’) phase of the continuum. This is based on the level of maturity and access and inclusion confidence and capability.⁷

^{6 B. Jones and Michael Brazzel 2014, The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change: Principles, Practices, and Perspectives.
7 Since 2018 Dr. Angela Workman-Stark has improved the definitions within the Inclusion Continuum to better align to evidence-based diversity and inclusion standards. The previous Inclusion Continuum (2018) included 6 pillars: exclusive, passive, compliant, proactive, redefining and inclusive. See the 2018–2021 Diversity and Inclusion Framework for expanded definitions.}

The next step in the journey towards our vision for CALD employee inclusion in Victoria Police starts with three actions for 2023–2024. In addition, Victoria Police has developed eight actions that will benefit all areas of diversity and inclusion.

These actions complement those actions targeted solely at improving the experience of CALD employees.

We define key terms below and acknowledge that people have different definitions.

Language has changed and continues to evolve.

Discrimination

The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, sex, or disability.

Discriminatory workplace harm

This umbrella term covers any way a person experiences discrimination, harm or violence based on protected characteristics within the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act.

Ethnicity

Is a term used to describe a social group that shares common and distinctive culture, religion, or language, rather than describing physical characteristics.

Gender Equality and Inclusion Outcomes Committee

The Gender Equality and Inclusion Outcomes Committee is the current authorising and governing committee that sits over gender equality in Victoria Police.

The committee is being expanded to include diversity and inclusion.

Intersectionality

This is an approach to understanding how social meanings related to the way we categorise and identify can overlap and interconnect.

This creates different layers of discrimination or disadvantage for either an individual or group.

Prejudice

Is a preconceived opinion that is not based on fact, reason or actual experience.

Program logic

A program logic model is a schematic representation that describes how a program is intended to work by linking activities with outputs, intermediate outcomes and longer-term outcomes.

Race

Is the social categorisation of people based on a combination of various physical characteristics including skin colour.

Race also represents historical and ancestral affiliation, or a shared culture. It can be a person’s self-identification with one or more social groups.

Racism

Is the belief that people can be categorised by a stereotypical understanding of their ethnicity or race.

This understanding leads to the belief that one race is superior to others.

This causes prejudice, discrimination and hatred to be directed towards someone based on their colour, ethnicity or national origin.

Stereotype

A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Workplace harm

Workplace harm is the detrimental effects of being targeted by all forms of inappropriate behaviour from work colleagues including sex discrimination, gender-based bullying, sexual harassment and assault, predatory behaviour, victimisation, workplace conflict and bullying.

Problem

An engrained culture and systemic bias has amplified inequality and impeded diversity.

Goal

A diverse workplace and inclusive organisation.