source : the age
A Sydney council passed a motion to make English compulsory on business signs in an attempt to foster unity, sparking backlash from critics who say it has overstepped its authority.
This is Strathfield Council’s second attempt to regulate shop signage – the idea was first floated at a council meeting eight years ago but attracted significant public resistance.
The move mostly affects businesses and shops in the area that don’t have English on their signage, but it doesn’t ban other languages from being on shop signs.
There are more than 7300 businesses in Strathfield, and about 73 per cent of the local government area’s 45,000 residents speak a language other than English. Mandarin, Nepali, Cantonese, Korean and Arabic are among the most common.
Liberal councillor Esther Kim, who put the motion forward, said some shops did not have English translations and were exclusively written in languages people could not recognise.
“I’m a migrant too; when people come as migrants, living in Australia, we have to respect that English is our common language,” she said at the council’s July meeting.
Labor councillor Rory Nosworthy said it was “a little bit of overreach” for councils to determine what shops should display.
“I’m not sure it’s an issue we have in Strathfield. I think it’s up to the store owner … I’m not sure it’s for us to say what language they should put their signage in,” he said.
Federico Carucci, a worker at Italian cafe Barone, was unconvinced that non-English signs were an issue. He pointed to the numerous bilingual and trilingual signs along Strathfield’s main commercial street, near the railway station.
“They [the council] have to fill their time by doing these things,” he said.
Diana Son, who has owned FM Beauty Salon for more than three decades, agreed, adding that customers had more than enough “common sense”.
“People of all cultures come here. Strathfield used to have a big Korean community here, that’s why we put Korean words here, but we always use Korean and English [on signs] together,” she said.
It is unclear how or when the motion will be enforced, how much notice businesses will receive, and whether ratepayers or individual owners would be responsible for costs to fix noncompliant signs.
The council is preparing a report outlining existing council policies on multilingual signage, with recommendations to “promote clear and accessible communication for all residents”.
“Until such time as the report has been prepared, we are unable to provide a response to the detailed questions posed,” a council spokesperson said.
The council did not clarify how many complaints it had received about the matter in the past year. Independent councillor Matthew Blackmore said the move was in line with existing council policies, but he conceded he had only seen a handful of shops that did not comply.
Four councillors voted in favour of the motion, while two voted against it.
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