Australian immigration department celebrates translation service success
December 23 2009 by Liam Clifford
The Australian immigration department is celebrating the 500,000th call to its Translation and Interpreting Service (TIS National).
The service took its 500,000th call in November, beating the
half-way point towards its goal of a million callers by a month. A spokesperson
from Australian Immigration and Citizenship said, “the milestone of
receiving half a million calls was reached a month earlier than in 2008-09,
which itself was a record year with more than one million calls to the contact
centre.”
The telephone interpreting service can be used by non-English
speakers who have moved to Australia and by people trying to communicate with
non-English speaking people living in Australia. The service is yet another
attribute introduced by the Australian government to help foreigners to settle
in Australia.
As of November this year, there had been 16.5 per cent more
calls to the Australian immigration service than at the same time last year indicating that it is
growing in popularity and benefitting more immigrants. The service has recruited
more translators to cope with the rising demand.
TIS National provides
interpreting service in 160 languages and dialects. It also helps non-English
speakers to get help with public services and allows them to communicate more
effectively with officials and organisations in their community.
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