An evaluation of the Australian government's policy of access and equity strategy in selected localities.

Australia is a country of 17 million people from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds. To respond to this diversity, the Australian Commonwealth Government in 1986 announced an Access and Equity Strategy as part of the Agenda for a Multicultural Australia. The Strategy was evaluated in 1991, and included five locality studies which assessed the implementation of the Strategy from the perspective of target groups of Aboriginal and non-English speaking people (NESB). This article describes this evaluation and the development of the Australian multicultural policy within which the Strategy is conceived. The findings and recommendations from the locality studies provide case examples of government wide policy development and implementation processes.