Many thanks go to three colleagues, Dolores Shi, Bella Zhe and Li Zhuimu for checking this transcript.

Thank you very much Charles. 

Hello to everybody. I guess like everybody else has done a lot of these sort of meetings in the last six months or thereabouts. This is probably the largest audience that I’ve had through this so it’s very very good. I’m really pleased to be here. So thank you for having me just like Charles has explained, I will share my screen in a little while if I can and have a broad PowerPoint a presentation to make and I’ll talk through that. 

Basically What I’ll be covering is a little bit about NAATI itself whilst NAATI has been around for a long time. If there is still I guess a fair bit of, lack of real understanding about what NAATI’s role is and sometimes in comparison to some of the other organizations in the tea in the Translating and interpreting industry. 

So I’ll just talk a little bit about that. I’ll Focus mainly on some of the more recent changes in NAATI and to our system and most more specifically the introduction of the certification system. Then I’ll talk about I guess where we see the next next few years going and the next changes we’ve where we’re starting to embark on and of course have plenty of time for some question and answer sessions. 

Thank you for those that have already sent through a few questions and suggestions. Some of those will already covered in presentation. So we’ll go across those but definitely they’ll be time to make sure anyone has got any questions at all that we make sure we can cover. Okay, it’s better to be more preferably more interactive if we’re possible, especially in this in this type of forum. So, please don’t be shy to ask question. Now and also, you know, I should just mention a special acknowledgment for those of you based in Melbourne, must be very very difficult. It’s been difficult for everyone but for those in Melbourne in the last few months with the extra lock-down I feel for you and hope that we are getting somewhere much closer to getting that result and getting people out and about again, obviously our office in Melbourne is also is also closed. 

So again, thank you great to be here with CITAA and welcome again. So like we said NAATI is more than 40 years now since NAATI was first established and I guess a lot of there was very minimal change over the first 30 almost 40 Years of that. The reason NAATI established in the first place by all of the Australian government’s Collective. 

It was really to make sure that the people who required the services of interpreter or translator could be could feel confident that they met a certain standards and had appropriate quality standards in place. There was very around the world. There are very few organizations like NAATI there are some specific ones in some countries, but there is certainly none that have the very wide breadth of languages that that NAATI has credentials in. So as you can see there 180 languages which include obviously sign language in a number of Australian aboriginal languages as well. 

Charles: Sorry, Mark, I think you haven’t shared a screen yet. 

Mark:  haven’t I ? Let me just, my apologies. I thought I had.  now having trouble going back keep up that sharing present of you. No. Well now I can’t get anything. So, there share screen, there not. Can you see the presentation? 

Charles:  don’t think so. well that participants participants can share.. Okay, oh that is not sure why that it’s. 

Charles: Do you want me to, share? 

Mark: you might have to because I’m clicking on shared screen, done some sharing. Maybe there’s something about my, access requirements. 

Charles: Okay, now. 

Mark: Oh hang on, says now, I now got messages to say that I’m screen sharing so can people see that now? 

Charles: Can anyone see? 

Audience: Yes, yes, we can see now. Yes, yes. 

Mark:  excellent. Oh, thank you, glad you just stopped me Charles, but I hope that…

Charles: I think I might be sharing.  anyway.  

Mark: I’ve got a message on the top to say that I’m now sharing my screen. 

Charles: Oh, okay, because if I might say the same thing anyway, if not, so I can go. If not, yeah you can you do that. 

Mark:  so I think I am so yes, I’m just saying that we have 180 languages in total that people holding some sort of NAATI certification in, and our a pretty unique interpret in terms of corporate structure because we’re not profitable company. We’re owned by all of the governments in Australia, but we’re not ourselves a government department. So, like I said, we’re a professional standards and quality, organizations. And like I said NAATI was created to support people who required essentially the consumer. 

So there is a bit of confusion about people perceiving that he is a type of advocacy body for the individual practitioners and whilst we certainly want to support the industry and certified practitioners and NAATI’s main purpose is to ensure that the standards and professional standards are there. So for people who require an interpretive translator, so essentially people whose we English is not their first language. 

So we’re not a professional association because there are others of those including everyone here CITAA of course is a professional association like AUSIT. We’re not an industrial Association or a union. We have a union for the industry in Australia. That’s professionals Australia. We’re not an educational trading provider because there are lots of TAFE universities and TAFE colleges in Australia to do that and similarly. We don’t provide the professional development opportunity because the other organizations listed there a better place to do that. 

So as I said, we’re about the industry professional standards regulation and we’re not those other types of organizations. However, it is in very important that we work closely closely with them because we all need to work together to improve the industry overall. Most people are very surprised understand to know that in Australia we are one of the most mono-lingual nations in the world and one of the most multilingual nations in the world at the same time, that’s because English is by far dominant, but of course we have so many of vast spread of of languages so that creates a real challenge for us in terms of trying to have the languages available for certification and create examiner panels and things like that. The languages continue to grow so depending on immigration patterns, we start to see growth in different types of languages as new and emerging communities arise in various parts of Australia and bring with them new languages. 

And so that were always looking for what with the next language to bring on and one of the challenges of course of having a universal system with so many languages is that the ability for the education system to have training in the number of languages is a real Challenge and the ability for us to try and keep a level of consistency because for some languages, you know take Mandarin for example large numbers of speakers large many opportunities with at University level education and therefore pretty easy for us to create testing in it. 

But some much smaller languages are very difficult for there’s not enough people to have University level courses. And so that makes it really difficult in the system. It’s a real challenge dealing with nine separate governments, and like everywhere some of the challenges we have NAATI are things like the quality and security and security of our system and the technology change of course is very difficult to keep up with. It’s some of the challenges more broadly in the industry, of course the casualization of the work. I think most people accept that the remuneration is not as good as we’d like to see for for a profession, you know, the constant changes in technology make it difficult for practitioners as well. So, you know, some of these challenges are true to NAATI, but they also apply much more broadly than that. 

So like we said the older system was around for 30 years and had very little change in that top. So there was also I guess some lack of transparency and a favourite of subjectivity in the test. And so as a result of that we saw we saw some inconsistency in some of the results and we also when I joined the organization became very clear to me because it might be my administrative background that was very efficient in terms of its natural admin and processing, very paper-based manual systems. 

So the core focus of a change we embarked on a significant change as we lead up to the instruction of certification and the initial process was all about the in testing and trying to improve their reliability of the test itself. So we started from scratch with developing new criteria and the standards and the skills that should be required of a modern professional translator or interpreter and stuff as our as our basis, but also wanted to improve, you know, at the end of the day the main focus was the improving the validity reliability and practicality of the actual assessments which with credentials were awarded. 

So that resulted in some of the changes to do that was to ensure enforce a minimum training requirement. But under the old system had a lot of people that were just eligible to just do the test. A lot of them didn’t do well and it was mainly because they hadn’t had some some professional training beforehand. So we did that and we tried to strengthen the role of a more formal training pathway because this is also about trying to make the industry look more like a profession and have better professional recognition. With English industry more broadly. 

So universities and tape colleges have what’s called endorsed qualifications? And we basically we as far as possible try to get people to their formal training which makes them eligible to do the test and then do the NAATI test. And so as you can see we separated that the training from the actual certification testing and like I said earlier because now he doesn’t have a role in the actual training or delivery of training and education. So that separation is important part we think of a quality system and I get under previous of the previous system. 

You could get accreditations that were in a few different ways. But to ensure better consistency. The only way now to get certified is by that is by sitting the United certification test  Some significant changes to the way tests are delivered with translation tests. 

Largely computerized and interpreting test including live scenario-based live roll-playing. Another big change was of course the introduction of the specialized Asian tests for interpreting that in the health and legal. I’m talking a little bit about  them a bit later because they’ve taken a little longer to develop but are now have now become started to become available. We have run at least the first few tests in those specializations. The assessment is a rubric-based assessment. So rather than a deductive marking process, the examiners apply the outcomes candidate outcomes assess their Performance Based on using a rubric and finally as most people would be aware, there is a universal requirement for all practitioners to maintain level of professional development and work practice with the compulsory recertification requirement. And now the intent our intent is to have a single Universal National system where everyone with a NAATI certification has the same requirements irrespective of when they got their certification or how they got it. 

I won’t  spend much time on this. This is basically the model of the different type of certifications that exist and you can see the new health and legal specializations at the top. In developing the new system, we spent a lot of time researching and surveying and talking to a lot of professionals and experts in the field to identify what the core knowledge skills and attributes should be of a professional. That sort of things we’re trying to assess in the test. And like so we had hundreds of people participate in surveys almost 3,000 participated in a survey to help inform what our recertification policy should look like. And more recently we had another 400 practitioners assist in a survey around developing our specialist interpreter test. 

This last year, it’s interesting as Charles said 2020 hasn’t really happened. It’s been a crazy year because so many things about it is different. We’ve been busy than ever but busier doing I guess on different things and certainly been a very challenging for us. Most people are pretty surprised to know that at the end of the year by the end of 30th of June recently. There are over 15,000 individual practitioners that hold at least one NAATI certification. And those 15,000 on people hold more than 20,000 individual credentials. 

So obviously a lot of people that hold more than one in 179 languages. People are also surprised of those 20,000 over 20,000 credentials more than 1,000 of them are held by people who don’t live in Australia. We shoot 6,269 new certifications in the financial year. Now not surprisingly, most of those were still people who are transitioning their older accreditation over and we now think we you know, there’s obviously a very very small percentage that didn’t transition that is now closed, but we certainly have the vast majority. As you can see almost 2,000 recertifications were processed in the year and there’s a few questions about recertification in that process that I’ll touch on a little bit later as well.  33 institutions either take so University, TAFE, colleges or private training institutions have endorsed qualifications registered with NAATI and we are now testing in 35 languages and we continue to add languages for certification testing to those as well. And I’ll talk a little bit later in next steps, but we’re entering a point where we’re starting to be much more involved in international developments and we’re now organizational members of critical linking International as well as the international institute for universities involved in translating and interpreting.  

Obviously for the obvious reasons didn’t get to any conferences certainly no conferences so far this year. As I said for the obvious reasons. The information here is about the new tests themselves. I won’t really spend much time on this because I’m my assumption is most people who are members of CITAA already have already hold a certification. So this is a much more interest for people who are coming up to a test. But in most cases people here would already be already be certified but a couple of the important tasks are include in in the certified interpreter test. 

As I mentioned before the marking assessment is rubric based which describes a candidates performance and we’re trying to focus on the overall performance rather than just identifying errors in the process. So the rubrics are for each task and they consolidated to make up the overall overall assessment. So each test is marked by two individual examiners.  Some cases if there’s not a not an agreement or not consistency in the results. We might use a third  examiner as well. And some people who get very close or pass some parts of the test, but not all of it. Sometimes eligible for a supplementary testing and if that is a case, they don’t do the entire test again. 

Only certain sections of it. So the there’s still lots of work going as I said that they work and implementation has been very taken up a lot of time in the last couple of years, especially with the new test. There are some more changes coming won’t be as comprehensive. It’s more about ongoing gradual changes from now on  For those who haven’t noticed yet, there’s some really good improvements to myNAATI portal that we’ve just released early this week that improve a bit of functionality and we built things in there like people will get automatic email reminders as they’re approaching their recertification period and for people who are waiting for a test. 

They’ll get messages to remind them that tests are now available. We are moving to a brand new online secure platform to deliver translating tests. So before covid-19 for a translation test would essentially lots of people would come to a NAATI office and bring their laptop or something and sitting in a big room together. Obviously that couldn’t work in that environment. So we’ve been investigating online options and we have procured one and the first new translation tests on this new online platform will be delivered in next month. And that and that will stay being online pretty much forever. 

We’ve made some changes to the specialist interpreter test so that they are now in in two parts. There’s a Knowledge Test. So for people who are and I was great to see what Charles put up before with the legal with the terms in legal  Those sorts of resources will help. So with the new specialization tests will be a Knowledge Test. It essentially will be done online and that’s understanding legal or health depending on the specialization but the terminology and just knowledge itself and the second part of that will be an actual interpreting task.  

The advantage of this is so the Knowledge Test the online is almost is like a prerequisite. So you pay for it, sit that test first, so if you don’t fail that if you fail if you don’t pass that one, you don’t bother sitting the interpreting test and you don’t waste as much money on that on that test, but for people who who do pass that we then have a pool of people who are available and we do the interpreting tests after that. We now have our endorsed qualification institutions within the next couple of months between now and the end of the applications that will be open to universities outside of Australia mainly because we’re able to use the online testing in future to be able to test them and so that will be fairly significant. What some people might know but many would not that the New Zealand government has formally approached NAATI with the view of adopting NAATI as an official standard in New Zealand as well. 

We had a lot of work on that had already progressed. Unfortunately again another victim of the Corona Virus and that work has postponed, but they are still pretty keen to do so will be re-engaging with friends in New Zealand again next year again for obvious reasons with the NZSTI conference that NZSTI, a professional association of New Zealand, like AUSIT and CITTA conference in general in June this year didn’t happen. But will be reconnecting with the New Zealand government folk next year. Now that we’ve done several thousand new certification tests. We think it’s important to maintain that quality that we now have a pretty in-depth review of those tests and see how they’ve gone and analyze all the results of all the candidates  just to make sure that we’re confident that the results are fair and valid so we’ll be doing comparisons across the various languages and also the various tasks.

So if we find that of the you know, the you saw earlier the tasks that make up a certified interpreter test. There are seven or eight if we find people are passing six or seven but consistently failing one or two. We can look at those one or two and see how that goes. And we’ll also be sharing information with the universities and TAFE colleges on aggregated results of the students that come from each institution to see how their performance goes as well and we’ll see if we can isolate any any discrepancies or differences and that may lead to making some further fine-tuning to the test depending on what we learned from that and that study will kick off early in the new year as well. Meanwhile, we’ve also got I mentioned New Zealand, but we’ve had several other countries or more specifically universities from various countries showing an interest in NAATI certification in particular  getting endorsed qualifications at their institutions. So that will be a continuing piece of work and we’re also continuing to develop the online tests. I mentioned when the new translating tests come next month probably more into next year, we’ll start thinking about how we can develop interpreting tests online. 

That’s obviously trickier because we have because of the life live component of that. In Melbourne having said that I should just go back in in our Melbourne office.  For obvious reasons, we’re not testing there. We have been able to deliver some online interpreting tests, not through a purpose-built delivery platform rather rather, but just using a medium like this like Zoom, we actually use MS Teams, Microsoft teams, and we have been able to do some interpreting tests like that, which is great but not necessarily a long term a long-term solution. 

In all other jurisdictions, except Victoria. So in all of our offices Sydney, Canberra, Perth, like everywhere else we’ve actually already commenced live testing. So uh face-to-face testing is now has restarted in all other locations except Melbourne, but as I said an opener is still working with the online for now, hopefully by the end of the year, or certainly next year. We’ll be back face-to-face. I am often amazed one of the questions I get regularly when I talk to groups like this is about our approach to examining in the examiners themselves. So a little earlier I explained how the examining the assessment process goes with individual examiners looking we consolidate those results. We have approximately 300 individual examiners who are engaged on a contract for their expertise as we continue to grow that as we add new languages. We have an assessment process. 

So we often call for applications or expressions of inches of people who want to become examiner in a language and we have a process they go through before we deem them suitable to engage in a contract with and then, you know, once you know contract environment we can extend or terminate or change as we go so we have an ongoing sort of recruitment process for examiners. Because and We’re doing a lot more work and developing work with our examiners and keeping them more engaged obvious again, those workshops that we do with them are now done over this format rather than face-to-face, but as we make changes if we make any changes to a test or anything, we hold that workshop with the examiners to discuss those changes and how we’ll go about marking it. 

Like I said, the ongoing training of the panels is really important. We assess we monitor the results see how if there are any individual examiners that are sort of out of sync with their peers. It gives us something to have a look at and maybe review and awesome more training. We also have a lot more staff in NAATI with their own capability in different areas when I joined is probably fair to say that the staff of NAATI were very much administrative in in trying to suggest that the industry the Translating interpreting industry looks more like a profession that NAATI itself has an organization has to look more like professional organization. So Since I started and going forward almost all the positions filled within NAATI require appropriate tertiary qualifications. So for example, our IT staff need appropriate degrees in technology. 

Our Communications area our finance managers need to finance people need to be certified practicing accountants, etc. etc. So and the people who work on we have several people with skills in or PhDs in linguistics as well as a few certified translators in interpreters ourselves, and that gives us a lot more credibility and professional standing within the system within the organization, sorry within the industry itself. Like I said, we continue to ongoing review and the validation of the system. So I mentioned that early next year, we’ll be doing a quite a significant review of that across the board to see that we’re satisfied that the results were getting are in fact a reliably indication of people’s performance. 

So it’s built the system was built with that ongoing quality process built into it. Now I’ve talked a lot about the changes to the testing itself and that it was of course the initial focus but a lot of the supporting systems that go with that having proved that as well and one of the biggest changes that you will have all experience is our online process. So the entire application process handling and all our engagement essentially now is online. When I started NAATI we had literally hundreds of filing cabinets of just paper. And for those that have got their sort of what it would have been accreditation sometime ago you’d have remembered it was about a 10 page paper form. 

So  a lot of that has gone and everything is is now online. I’ve already talked about they are emphasis on more formal training on those qualification system. We’ve tried to support the organizations like AUSIT, CITTA and others to make more professional development available and we’ve done that by directly investing in some ourselves as I said, not NAATI doesn’t deliver it and we don’t think it’s appropriate that we do that. Because of our role as regulating and making the requirement of professional development, we don’t seek to profit from that but support other associations and appropriate organizations to do that. And of course one of the by making the recertification essential it means there is that is created more demand for professional development. 

We’ve put lots of money and time and effort into not just the online process for 14 days. But for NAATI itself internally, so all of our internal processes are now much more. Much more online and sophisticated. 

We have vastly improved reporting capability so we can get lots of information out about candidates the languages performance of them how many tests aware and what the results were and how many people are certified vastly quicker. 

So that business intelligence reporting has been really helpful to us in the mind after portal of course, which many of you would be familiar with we also have a program of ongoing research where we engage with other professional organizations to try and look at areas where the industry would benefit from better knowledge and some of the more recent ones around that have been video based interpreting and the implications of that and also some translating Technologies as well. And we also have money available to support what we call the industry development which is things like developing a PD or identifying particular remote areas or certain languages where support is required to get training available. 

So we’ve also worked very hard with and not just NAATI but with other so organizations in the industry more broadly and with governments are trying I guess mainstream and get better recognition of translating interpreting as a profession and a couple of the best ones of those best example of those is cost illegal and health sector. You know, hopefully these resources are familiar to everybody. But the first one is the national standards for working with interpreters in courts and tribunals. I contributed to this project and what’s good about both of these documents is that not it wasn’t NAATI or is it all set or even interpreters so much. 

Publishing these documents, but the first one is actually published by the courts and the second one by groups of doctors clinicians. So seeing that recognition within those professions, we think will help I guess raise the profile of the importance of interpreting. Although clearly what we’ve seen in the last few months with Corona Virus is still quite a way quite a way to go but we’ll be trying to leverage off that example. So translating around Corona Virus are trying get it on the radar of governments that they still need. There’s still more to do in this place in this particular area. 

More specifically now with Corona Virus. I think everyone knows how I disruptive. It has been to a lot of things but since it hit it’s it’s impacted on after a lot. Thankfully we’ve been able to maintain all of our staff and luckily for us the Investments we’ve made in our ICT. It strategy has really helped. So we had everyone working remotely from home, but we all had a good access to our important systems of information good video-based technology the navalist to keep to keep moving in most places around Australia. People are back in the 90 offices Melbourne office being the obvious exception. 

We continue to do lots of workshops with the examiners and other professionals. We also have meetings advisory policy committee meetings as well as board meetings are all done online. We have still been able to do some CCL tests for people not for me that is credentialed community language test. I should be just clear. They are not interpreting tests. This is not part of the official certification. 

This is just some other language competency testing. We do separate to that they are much easier to run because I don’t require Role plays and they can be pre-recorded and they lend themselves much easier to be done online. So that has been able to continue as I’ve already mentioned the translation tests will start in a new platform next month. And I’ve also previously mentioned that face-to-face interpreting tests have already convinced everywhere except Melbourne in the Melbourne office is running some interpretive testing online using Microsoft teams. 

That is not our long-term solution. We think we need a I guess a more secure longer term platform, but it’s helping us at least get through some tests in the short term. A few months ago the night he bought in recognition of the challenges that were being faced by the industry agreed to a support package for practitioners. 

Now anyone who’s had to read it recertify very recently will have already noticed. They only have the pay 50% of the normal admin fee for recertification and more than 5,000 people will benefit from that. So anyone who is due to recertifying the period from April of this year all the way through to next June will only pay half of that fee. and almost for everyone nearly more than 10,000 people will benefit from is because of the challenges with access to PD and some of the work being affected only two-thirds of the normal requirement will be required for that three-year certification period So I guess lots of changes. It’s certainly been a big a few years and this year certainly been one. 

Like no other I said earlier that the main purpose around 90 that is creation in existence was for the benefit of of consumers. And so the message I guess the people who require the services of a translating interpreter can feel some comfort knowing that if I engage someone with 90 certification, they’ve have formal training certainly most cases. They the skills are relevant to the industry. 

They’ve been tested by independent assessment of 90. They have demonstrated that cultural and ethical confidence maintaining currency. And of course engaging ongoing professional development. So that’s gets the important measure that NAATI tries to use every time we get the opportunity with governments or key external stakeholders about the importance of certification. Before we open to more questions just you can always we had a get information from our website. We had a very pretty significant relaunch major change to our website in April. 

So if you haven’t been there recently, please have a look this lots of information there at any time was I’ll certainly take questions now and take a minute time, but you can always able to ask info@naati.com.au for a question about anything and if you’re not already on our monthly the subscription for our monthly electronic newsletter, please do so. In keeping touch that way. So that is it in terms of the formal side of the presentation. But as I said, I have a few questions, I’ll start with one, but then to be as I can work through or Charles up to you if you appropriate to facilitate. Or stop sharing now. I’m more than happy to send a copy of the presentation through the distributed if anyone there’s some dot points there if anyone’s interested. 

So before I go to broader questions one that pops up regularly that I’ll just straight away is about the ninety translation translator stamp and the confusion that some people get Very frustrating first, but still some people incorrectly thinking that this because the date of the translators credential ending people confused with the with the translation no longer being valid that is clearly not the case. The translation is valid forever the date refers to the individual. Translator and their own personal certification, but it doesn’t affect the the translation itself. We have a general statement to that effect on our website and I often have people to refer to that. we think most places are getting better certainly be departments like Department of Foreign Affairs and so forth understand that so we don’t have too much trouble with them, but after the After we finish today, I will forward a fort to Charles who can distribute the statement more importantly a link to the bit on our website where it makes that very very clear and if anyone then you can send it to people if they ask how many confusion about that. You can send them that link to make it very clear. 

So  I guess Charles whichever way best to go now happy to take questions randomly or work through some of the ones. That are provided. I’ll be in your hands before thank you very much Mark. Thank you for your very comprehensive introduction and updates of what’s happening in this industry. As I said that I’ve been involved in with 90 and in this industry for the last 30 years. I saw that great changes. I’ve been on it panel for quite few years size. So I know the in and out of lot of things now, we have 95 96 participants. So this is very important event for everyone to see you to talk to you and you I have a few questions before We open the floor to everyone now anyone who wants to ask a question, please type in so that people can see and also there’s not a lot of interference by voice or with microphone. Now, you mentioned eye governments. 

They are the Australian six days to territories in the federal, right and now New Zealand is part of it. Now are they going to be part of the say nine plus one jurisdictions or they are just a user.  So what we’ve discussed with them in agreed with our governments is that they won’t become essentially denying governments in Australia or other owners as well. So the discussion we’ve had with New Zealand is that they won’t become an owner and so won’t be 10 governments. 

They will simply we will have a contract to service agreement with them where they’ll pay essentially for the intellectual property of our system and we’ll do that directly. So The a you know a key stakeholder and we’ll have an arrangement but they won’t become formalized as part of we won’t be changing the Constitution to make that change where they’ll become attentive government owner. 

Thank you. The other thing was that I know you have explained notice role now. I think When I talk to people over the last 30 years when I went overseas to teach and talk to people. I think there’s a consistent constant misunderstanding of notice role now because different countries particularly for China, there are different translation authorities their roles are different. Some of them are for example China translation Authority. It is not a real Authority. It is a translational Organization for the Chinese Communist party. So they people in Australia and also overseas do not understand now, can you briefly reiterate what that is wrote what not you can do for this industry what not. You cannot do very briefly.  

Thank you Charles. So as I said mainly 96 existence is about for the consumers and so having a quality and standards body that that says if you work in this industry in Australia, there should be Stand as you get to and that’s what the certification is built around. So we certainly try and influence policy for the better. So we training we work hard to make sure governments understand the importance of having certification as opposed to interpretive that doesn’t because of all the reasons we mentioned about the quality and confidence that comes with that. We want to support the professionalization whilst we have authority in our name and clearly. We’re only body in Australia that issues a type of certification for these industry. But we do work collaboratively with others to try and help the profession more broadly and that is like professional recognition of the industry. But whilst we what we can’t do and this is a I guess a lot of people get confused with as we don’t have Direct Control to you know, naturally make rules. So ultimately the government’s individual policies or nine of them have individual policies that the go to certain things we try and make them as best they can but we don’t own those policies we influence them but they’re up to various governments, simply language service providers who employee interpreters. They set the rules around around that. We often ask about why we can’t improve pay and remuneration. We’d love to have that much power. But we don’t set that. That’s either obviously sometimes government sometime private sector or sometimes the individual provider. So we can’t you naturally, you know force people and we’re not a we’re not a union so we can’t advocate for individuals that way so there is a union that does that and they recently had some success so professionals Australia Lobby pretty hard and continued Lobby hard at what we support their efforts, but we can’t be that organization because where that’s that’s not us. However, we do support them. So a couple of years ago Victorian government announced a pretty significant increase in remuneration, you know, we’d all love it to be more but 15% was pretty significant and they did that largely based on how improvements that a certific. Just that they felt added more strength and professionalism to it and only people that hold its certification were eligible for that increase. So, you know, we can’t it we can’t enforce it, but we can try and help and Advocate where we can to do those things. Also more recently. I know professionals Australia wrote to various governments and language service providers. Urging them to pay with Corona Virus obviously a lot more telephone and video based interpreting urge. You can pay the same rates and we strongly endorse that as well. We can’t make it and we can’t even So again, we can’t enforce it. leave with that, but we can help where we can so I guess in in some way they’re the things we can’t do but we do try and work with professional organizations and others. to assist with those things where we can’t Okay, Mark. That’s very useful. Okay, as I said so many people may start to notice row and even though you covered it. I think I need  you think yeah and people internationally often think we are the where the trainers as well like we actually run the course and you know, we don’t do that either we important part of the separation is that the expert in the education experts do their bit and we do our separate to that. So again, we try and work closely together, but that’s an important difference. The other thing I’d like to ask you is from your presentation. You mentioned like legal and the health tests. There will be a Knowledge Test Now. Is that going to be only in English or in dual languages? That part will only be in English. Okay, and so because quite few practitioners have expressed their interests, they asked me whether they can sit and I could answer and so this is something that they are interested. The other thing was that it about EQ in those qualifications for institutions both in Australia and overseas now, Are they? if they get EQ indoors particularly for Overseas organizations institutions are they done remotely or we are sending people or because you know here we have life and they do they do live online with them or how we’re going to do it. So we short incidents. We’re not sure yet because we haven’t done any yet. And so from the start of next year, we’ll be the first or well, that’s not true. We have already have one in New Zealand, but that’s okay. If we need to do a live test that’s easy to get to but for any new institutions are joined from next year. One of the reasons, we haven’t done it earlier Charles. Is that is that very reason because if we make a forgiven institution endorsement and they graduate people or we have an obligation to test them because that’s part of what they paid for. Let me and we haven’t done it yet because we haven’t had the means to do that. So next year when any International universities take up that option. We’ll have to think about how we do that. Now if it’s Translating that will definitely be online because that we will we will soon have that capability to do that. If it’s interpreting, we think it’ll eventually be online noting that in most cases Masters. These are going to be most these going to be universities are going to be at least a year if not two or three years. So we’ve actually got the alley they won’t be starting to January. We’ll actually have a couple of years before there before they graduate and become eligible for a test. So We’re still working on whether it will be translating will all be online with interpreting whether it’ll be online or face-to-face or a combination of both. Thank you very much. And your determined wonderful. Thank you very much. And we’re welcome the 50% of the reciprocation fee reduction. And I think I’ll be editing for that too by myself. And I think every little helps during this go get started periods. Now, we have seen some questions now on the chat column. So if any participant who has any questions, please type here so we can see go through. However, before we do that we have some questions. from from Memphis before and you let me see if I can find it and one of those was in relation to I remember seeing one that was in relation to the with recertification and the work practice requirements are seeing can they just attach something the answers? Yes, and that in fact can already be done now so you don’t have to log every single job if you prefer not to do it that way and when we finish Charles I’ll say and again I’ll send to you and you can circulate to the entire group some screenshots about how you can do that. So essentially, you know, the tools in minority for there is tools if they help great, but if not doesn’t matter so for some people who have especially translated as it have multiple do jobs for multiple people. They find it easier and interpreters who do lots of work for several agencies find it easier. But if you have mainly one agency,  it’s easier to just get one statement from the agency to see you’ve done so many hours or assignments. So and you can just upload that there’s a single attachment so I will forward a some screen. To you after the present tape after these look lucky around the show people how to do that, but it’s already available except now. Let me share the screen and we can again go through some of the share screen area I think people can see now there are 20 Questions. A lot of them being answered. So came to know the latest trends in TI industry. You have covered that number two. I’d like to know more details about future certification process for specialist interpreting. You have already covered. I think I can just add a little bit to that. So as I said, it’s a two-part test now in most cases to be eligible does require some formal some formal training at one of the University. They’re also can you can be available? If you’ve got sufficient experience plus some very specialized PD. And again, we want to we don’t want to set people up the fail. So we want people we by being going through the recliners to become eligible. We’ll give people a better a better chance and there’s more information about that on the website as well. Wonderful the upstairs number three. Will Telehealth still be used. postponement  that’s not definitely not not something that NAATI can control a bit like saying before about however having my my feeling is that it almost certainly will I think it won’t be up to now it’ll be up to the doctors and the patients but I already talked to a lot of people generally who think there’s a lot more convenient for certain things and therefore will likely to keep doing that and similar to video based interpreting it became big because of the pandemic but my instinct is that will continue a lot and hopefully one of the benefits from that preterite is they wait they will spend less time waking less time wasted in transporting from job to job if they do that. One to four they add number four. Now. You also said not his support interpreters giving the juiciest percentile residual restification fee any other measures you support interpretation translators your likelihood. Yeah related to that was also the two-thirds of the requirement noting that you know, so many conferences were not on and so forth and so for the work practice and the professional development requirement requirements reduced by two-thirds as well. Excellent that number five. Can you read it completely related yet. So again won’t be a free extension, But it’s been reduced by half and they’re in the requirements of being reduced. So that covers that as well. Okay, we want more about number six because then when I heard that and number seven as a practitioner for 16 years, I’ve not seen anything significant 90 has stand for blah blah blah, which what has 90 down for us. I think you have answered that question very well because I don’t think that before yeah not something we control but we try and that we try and help with Yes, it’s and number eight. That format in the content of session. Okay, that’s so we’ll have to talk about that how to be more professional to answer that. Well, I would just say part of our we’re trying to look at the professionalism from an industry point of view and therefore every individual should be looking at it from their own point of view. But we think creating sorry can I interrupt? I’m not sure if it’s not our mute if you if someone mute and have this noise, can you please put yourself on mute? So it’s not not everyone being interfered. Thank you. Sorry very much.  that’s okay. Yes. I think you know there that this requirement for ongoing professional development the opportunity to engage through organizations, like the city and more engagement with the profession and more professional development is the way to go Okay number 10 is another guesswork for you.  my I think you know again this is I’m not Authority in this but I do think the trend toward more video based interpreting is likely to continue and machine assisted translation. So for translators, I think getting across the technology and using those sorts of things are going to be an ongoing thing. Okay. Now number 11 is more or less the same you have just answered. And so number 10 effect on that. Yeah 12. Yes. Yet we’ve probably covered that application this this also lots more whilst the conferences are not happening. There are lots more webinars and things available these days. So I’d encourage people to be engaging in those things. Okay. Now being a 14 you have already covered and 15. We totally agree with you again. We don’t we don’t make the rules but I’m aware of professionals Australia writing to governments as well as service providers and we have indoor set as well. Wonderful. Now number 16 we have covered and 17 17 so the inches yes in in every place except Melbourne that has already convinced that’s for interpreting translating cash flow. No longer translating tests will never come back in a face-to-face at an RD office. I’ll be online and interpreting tests have started being done again, and we hope they’ll restart in Melbourne before the year is out. So what you’re saying is that translation will never be physical will be online. Oh, this is very big change.  perfect. Yeah forever anywhere. And that’s one of the things that will assist with the international things. We talked about earlier except now, we have 18 people can’t go online and have a look. Yep. So well the upcoming interpreting test schedule. Yes is now the whole next two years is pretty much available. So in the last week or two, I just mentioned that we made some some changes to our system that included the portal and now people when they select a test you can see all the tests available. I mean, well, I will obviously add to it but at the moment you can program or schedule your test almost up to the next two years. Okay, can you predict what future translation Market is? No better than anyone else other than I would say the changes in technology will continue and you know working internationally and working with the computer assisted translation tools will continue. I talk about computer systems translation tools when they do the tests. Are they an even though in the markets everyone is using it and the particularly more and more people and the institutions are using it. In our case, we reflecting the computer. Or in a software assisted tools sort of so We’re not actually doing it with one of the tools because there are so many and they all they all want to compete what but what we have is one of the tasks in the translation test is an editing task. So for all intents and purposes the candidate we pretend it’s been already translated by a computer. In the candle has to fall as the then edited to fix it and identify what the errors are so so it’s a mimic to be as if it was a computer 81. So we have the we have the obvious tasks where you just do from scratch, of course because we still want to get their course skills, but a component of the test is an editing task where you take a pre a translation that’s already been done, but it’s clearly got some strategic errors in it and part of in the can that it has to identify those errors and why so that Wonderful. Now the last one how to be the best translator. Can you summarize I’m probably not best placed. There’ll be a lot more experts on the session here. That would know probably a lot more than a lot more than me. Of course as all will as all I would say is you start with being certified in the first place and then, you know, maintaining the PD and getting across the technology and in keeping in keeping that going but yes, I Debbie people on your panel here that would be or at least involved that you know a lot more about that than I Thank you. Now. Let’s go to the questions being posted today. I think everyone can see this now. Let’s go to the top first and then a questions now, I encourage everyone who has any questions for Mark the floor is open and I can see questions here. This is from in one to everyone question for Mark. Yep, how does Nike monitor candidates to make sure they are not using Google translate or other online translation tools during the online translation test. Yes. Yep, very very good question. It’s a very good answer. So we are new online the the technology system we purchase that’ll be that the new test will be done or very shortly have tools in it to prevent that. So there are some allowable resources that are used by everything is recorded in the it’s a secure online platform and it will not allow things like  and we tested it by, you know, pretending to cheat and copy and paste and stuff and invalidates the test. So there is in built security into the system. Okay, good. Now what about next one? I’ve some questions. Okay would worry about that. Why is Thomas strong is a voice identification system. I suggest okay for we have done that. Okay in also one in one to everyone. I’m a trainer teaching a translation course at a bit my students who attended are read it out just in case some people know.  I haven’t really seen it yet. My students who attended this certified translating tests English into Chinese found that marketing process of the proofreading components in the test is not transparent enough. For example, the report only describes where the candidates did do. Well I erased that are not identified wrong suggestions made to errors but the report does not go into details where exactly the phrases were sentences that candidates did not As Aries as a trainer and also seeking more guidelines from 90 as to where the standard lives when the teaching will teach you my students about how to improve read a text. 

Charles: The text example about proofreading component on NAATI website is far from sufficient.

Mark: All right, good. Thanks, that’s a good feedback and we’ll have to, we will not cover all that here, but we are certainly interested in that type of feedback from institutions. And so presumably whatever, um, your institution will be an Endorsed Qualifications one, so you can feed that back through the coordinator to our EQ coordinator, and, and we’ll have a look at that because we want to make sure that,  people are given as much feedback as possible. One of the problems we have with that particular task. We’ve identified is, people spend too much time trying to fix errors that aren’t part of the official one. So I did mention about the review of all the tests we’ve done so we made some recent changes to the brief that we think will help a little bit with that particular task, but we’ll look at all of those results and we do this review and see if we finding any, if candidates generally are having more issues with that particular part of the test. So thanks for the feedback. And as I said it good provided back through our EQ, we can take it up more specifically. 

Charles: Thank you Mark. Now there’s question from Bents. Can we get a copy of this PowerPoint? You said yes? 

Mark: Yes, you can, I’ll forward it to you. So Charles are more than happy for you to distribute that after me. 

Charles: Thank you. Now there’s a question is from Isaac Wu: Is the online interpreting test available now? Can I apply to sit an interpreting text now?

Mark: Yes, but, it’ll be, you can apply for the interpreting test now, depending on where you are. In most cases it’ll be face to face, if you’re in Melbourne, it’ll probably be online. But we hope to be face to face again soon. But as long as the usual process of eligibility is there and the online application process deals with that so you have to demonstrate your eligibility. 

Charles: Thank you. 

Mark: But I’m assuming you’ve done that then, yes, it can be sat. 

Charles: Now there’s a question from Yu Zhao: Mark discussed about the research program that NAATI funded. Is it possible to elaborate further? Must be a research institution or can be a private entity. 

Mark: It can be either. So we have an ongoing program and we at any one time we usually have about two or three projects on the go. It’s fair to say that in most cases, it has been the university that has been successful. Simply because they’ve got more runs on the board in terms of credibility, but it’s not limited to that. So there is information on our website about the program and the requirements are. So the main, the main criteria is actually that it has, it has a benefit to the industry longer term.

Charles: Okay. Okay. Now next few ones were just in fact comments and there’s one from Elline KHOO, said: I’m sure everyone is suffering from COVID one way or another. Isn’t it fairer for every practitioner to have a once off 50% reduction for recertification and not only for those with specific periods of time only, especially for those whose recertification period who is due in July? 

Mark: Okay. So I just to clarify that we did have a look in the people that benefit, ah, it was up to 10,000 people. So we extended, so anyone who was due from April all the way through to June. So we had to, I guess, draw the line somewhere. That that cost for about three-quarters of a million dollars, that reduction, and it will cover a lot of people in that 15-month period. So if you due to recertify, in say July of 2021, you would not get that benefit, but you’ll still benefit from the reduction in the PD and work requirements. 

Charles: Now Mark, you mentioned up just one 50% reduction in one area that costs three quarters of a million. Now I was wondering apart from the money given by the nine governments, where does NAATI get its money come from? 

Mark:  Yeah good question. So nowadays the number, the money we get from governments makes up less than 10% of our total revenue. So  we get some money from them, but it certainly not a lot. But, the vast majority of money actually comes from people who do the tests. Obviously the education institutions pay for their endorsement so we get some from that as well. And we, as I said, we have other types of testing like the Language Aid test and the Credential Community Language test, we get some of that as well, but all of that together, yeah is we get it from those combination of sources with the vast majority is basically people who sit tests 

Charles: Okay. Now there’s a specific question. I’m not sure this, if you know this. From Ning Wang: For both T/I, do I need 120 PD points or 240 PD points to get re-certified? 

Mark: No, if no, 120 in total. The, the points, the points apply to the individual, irrespectively if you have one or five actual credentials. 

Charles: So which means, for example, I have three or four,  directions. I don’t need to have 120 by four. 

Mark: No, no, no, 120 in total, and what’s different, the only time it’s different is obviously the work practice. So if you’re an interpreter and a translator you need to demonstrate working in both, but for the PD, it’s just for its, um, the amount applies to the individual. 

Charles: Okay, thank you. Also, there’s a specific question: In the practitioner directory, why there is no box to put a website. 

Mark:  Well, I’m surprised to hear that because you definitely can. You definitely can include your website link on the directory. Now I believe, clearly, I don’t know exactly how because I’m not the technician. But if, if you send an email into info, or, because what appears on the directory is actually determined by each individual practitioner. So in myNAATI, you, because there are practitioners, of course, who don’t want to show on the director at all. So they’re still in our system, but they don’t show publicly. That’s, that’s fine. Now some people just want very minimal information somewant more information, but there is definitely provision to include your own personal sort of company website, especially if you’re a translator, they find it really good. So I can’t here tell you how to do it, but I know it can be done and I know most of that is controlled from within the myNAATI portal. So have a look around in there. And if you can’t find it then please let us know and I’ll get someone who knows a system a little better to help you do it. 

Charles: Thank you Mark. I think you can in fact, because I put mine, but I can always check again. I think mine is in there. Now there’s one more question from Xiangji Zheng, he was saying hi Mark, my question is a bit different from the previous one. Instead of asking what NAATI has done, what can we do as professionals and professional bodies to tackle the obvious problems in the “frozen” pay rates for interpreters? 

Mark:  Thanks. I think that’s a really good question. And I think the solution is somewhere in there, as well, in that, it is an industry-wide problem, right? It’s not an NAATI problem and it’s not a, you know, individual practitioner, well, it is clearly a practitioner’s problem but, but, but it’s an industry-wide one and it needs everyone to be trying, ah, be supportive which is why I think work like the recommended national standards and things like that help because it starts to put the interpreter, for example, in, in the light amongst other professionals and so I think continuing to make the profession look more like a profession is part of the way to go and I think this is not going to happen quickly, but I think continual and gradual steps toward professionalization of the sector will get there and that will help convince governments and others like courts that is, that it is a reasonable thing to do. I, you know in the scheme of things, a legal example is a good one. Unfortunately, the courts focus on the Interpreter as a, as a cost without understanding their essential, essential part of the apparatus. Now, they wouldn’t think you know, and I said this to some judges, you wouldn’t think twice about not having, you know other officers of the court or other, in fact, when I was presenting on these status in, I think it might have been Hobart. I said a courthouse that had a lot of light, a lot of glass and a lot of lighting and, and I said, why don’t we, do you ever think about, you know, you’re clearly don’t think about turning the lights off, save power because you’re going to pay for electricity. It’s not, you don’t even think of it. So we have to stop have to change the mentality of thinking that the interpreting is like an add-on extra cost instead of a part of it, and I think those standards go a long way and I think collaborating with other professions is going to get us more traction in the long run. 

Charles: Thank you Mark. That’s very good analogy, particularly to courts because you know, we do so much work for courts in the community and we are not being seen properly and not being dealt with properly either. Now, Mark, there’s another question. I think this is very valid, and NAATI has been seeing as a toothless tiger, once people got the qualification before and they have it, they have it forever and you can’t remove them. So the question from Bents was that another question for Mark: Has NAATI ever cancelled any interpreter’s qualification due to unprofessional contacts? 

Mark: Yes, in my time here, in the five years of I’ve been in, not often, most of the time, you know, we get accusations and we sent a bit of warning or encourage PD, but it’s true that, you know, we can’t do must. However, twice, I’ve actually cancelled existing accreditations. I won’t do too much detail. But in one case an interpreter was working in the court got involved in a relationship with someone who was a witness.  and another one was a translator who was…

Charles: Mark, sorry to interrupt, but are you talking about relationship. You are not talk about for example, he or she didn’t do the job properly or messed up, but they got into personal relationships. 

Mark: Yes. 

Charles: So does that mean NAATI has jurisdiction to cancel the qualification due to the personal relationship. 

Mark: Well, no, in this case, it was because of that the Interpreter working in the in the person of interest was part of the court processes. So those basically unprofessional conduct.  and in the case of a translator it was someone who was copying,um, letting their stamp be used by someone else for generally. So now we have to go to some effort to prove it but there are at least two cases, you know, in the time I’ve been here where we have where we have cancel someone’s certification now. 

Charles: Now Mark the second instance you mentioned, I think, is so important because we have been constantly asked by migration agents, or by all sorts of people, asking us, saying that you know, we do the translation, we just use your stamp and we pay you each stamp, we pay with this amount of money $10, $15 or something, you know, to do anything. We do the stamp, we just use the stamp; we pay you every time we use it. And I’m sure a lot of my colleagues have encountered the issue. So this is, like you described, it is a sackable or cancellable offense. 

Mark:  if it’s done, you know, clearly. I mean this case was very extreme. But  you just can’t, you know, the stamp basically says this is me personally undertaking this this translation, you know, there are ways you can do it. There are ways you can do it, properly, electronically, but it still has to be the translator who’s saying, you know, I did this translation. 

Charles: Thank you very much. And that’s really answered the question in my mind for, for a long time. I’m sure everyone, a lot of you have this issue. Now this is a definite answer from you, from the CEO of NAATI. So anyone, you know, ask you again, please think twice and just say no. Now we have answered all questions, Oh no, there are more questions coming through. Or this is from Bingshen Zhou. He said how can translators stop their stamps to be used fraudulently. Because I found mine, personally, I find my stamp being used fraudulently by the government authority they found out they rang up, saying that Charles, is this your translation? And we checked because our jobs, we have all numbers and job numbers we found out wasn’t ours. It happened to me, and that person escaped from the authority. Yes. They started ringing this out. This is way too lot work for the government, they saw But this is Bingshen’s question. 

Mark: Mmm.  I don’t know how I get them in the in the first place. I think the longer term solution and we started to talk about this but we haven’t really worked it out yet to improve security. I think longer term some form of digital stamp as the way to go. But that’s a little way off yet because we have to still have to work through how we can ensure the integrity and security of that. But it does,  the concern is how people are getting it in the first place. I mean, I know it’s a bit controversial putting the, the date end of the you know, the credential ending date, but it is one of the things that helps a little bit because at least as protected for ongoing, but I don’t know how people are getting other people’s, other people’s stamps or details. Certainly one other thing that’s helped a little bit with the new system is the practitioner number, so under the old days the old NAATI number was just a numbers, you know, one two three four five, so that lead to a lot of problems because people could just guess. You could just chose through, you could put in the verification system, just five a number like eight five six seven four. It was actually be a real number. That’s, the new number, the CPN number with the alpha numeric code is some system generated. So no one will ever be able to guess it so it’s a little bit more secure. So  I don’t know exactly how to stop it. But certainly, having better, better protection of the stamping can only help. 

Charles: It’s we could try on, because you know people are out there. There are some dark corners. They always find a way anyway, so the whole world is facing this problem. However, there is another question from Bents: If we heard anyone complaining about another interpreter. What should we do? 

Mark: Oh. It depends a little bit. I guess it depends on the nature of, like, complaint. Now, I would encourage if you hear someone in a. You hear someone just talk about it. If you think, you know, this is an element of judgment. If you believe that there’s a cause for concern. I would encourage, I would encourage you to encourage them to tell us. If it’s just gossip or something then, you know, it’s really not worth people, but if it’s genuine concern about if they think the defining thing is if they think someone’s performance is actually a poor reflection on the professionalism in the industry. It’s worth us trying to do something. Now if someone just being, you know, this is not the type of thing that would end up in someone losing their certification. However, we can give them feedback that we have had a complaint and sometimes you know that helps people think a little bit more or reflect a bit more or do some more specific, um, do some more specific PD. So  I think the question will be if someone’s complaining to you about another interpreter. If it’s just, you know, use a bit of judgment, but if you think it’s, if it undermines professionalism, I would encourage you to encourage them to bring through our attention. 

Charles: The other thing Mark, I think, I find that because since you took the office, says CEO, you have cancelled two practitioners qualifications. This is a very significant milestone in discipline. Now before that, I remember some of the organizations Were working with, they made complaints before you came up to NAATI, made complaints to NAATI and NAATI couldn’t do anything because they said it’s not in NAATI’s role to sanction the practitioner and even though it was governed authority. They sent letters of Complaint to NAATI but NAATI couldn’t do anything. So this will be a very significant in our life as an interpreter or translate because your qualifications gone, you can’t work. 

Mark:  and I think it is, you know, I think it’s a bit of a copy out.  we can’t, there’s lots of things we can’t do and we can only mandate two things and they’re extreme cases, but even as a minimum, I think it’s fair to still, I still write, as I said, there’s only two would cancel but there’s lots more we’ve actually given feedback to them say we’ve had this feedback, you know, we’ve had examples of translators allegedly taking someone’s money then, then, you know making a, you know, how much will cost then taking their money and then wanting more money before I give the documents back and there’re things like that, and we, and we, I feel obliged to write to them and say that we’re aware of it, and we don’t acceptable. 

Charles: So now Mark, talk about this issue, because it might be more happening than what meets the eye. Now does NAATI think of publishing some of these cases without obviously, you know, blanking out the names? You know, pushing in NAATI’s newsletter to everyone so everyone knows about it. 

Mark:  I guess we could you know, I guess we don’t necessarily promote it but we certainly want people to think, and we don’t want to do is to skip it, but you know, most people I talk to actually think it’s a good thing because I feel that we’re making more and effort for, to support the, the reputation of the professional people. 

Charles: That’s right. I think it’s a good idea because if you tell people what, what is correct behaviour and what’s not, people will observe now. There is one last question from Ning Wang. She said she missed the first part: Hi Mark, do you practice T/I yourself. 

Mark: Thank you, but I definitely no, not at all, my one and only language is English. So I have so much respect and appreciation for all the wonderful work that translators and interpreters do. I could never do it. So, so no, but luckily for me, my role as CEO, the skills I have in terms of governance and finance and stakeholder engagement policy is more appropriate for me. But if, if you were on earlier, you would have heard me talk about NAATI staff, generally. We do have some professionals translators and interpreters on the staff as well as some linguistic people, but all of our, for exactly our people work in our finance have to be certified practicing accountants and now IT people have to be qualified in that. So we insist on qualifications relevant to the specific job, so that’s a long answer, short answer is, no I don’t. 

Charles: OK. There’s Yue Hu said many thanks for CITAA to organise the session. Thank you Mark for your patience in answering so many questions from us. Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend and stay safe. And also Yue was saying to you and represents what our feelings towards to you, and I think we have you stop and assert all the questions presented by members, and this would be the last opportunity if anyone wants to ask any questions to Mark and I remember a couple of years ago. It seems like yesterday that you came to NAATI ATN in Melbourne. And unfortunately that event was in a restaurant and with the background noise. A lot of people couldn’t hear properly. But this time I think everyone can hear every single word that you told people. I think but the only problem downside this time is that people can’t have photo with you. And this time people can hear the message loud and clear. So apart from that we have, everyone is very happy, we have Isaac and Liqiu, they all say thank you to you. So now I think that’s all. Sorry one more question. Okay, can those interpreters who lost their qualifications become interpreted again. 

Mark: Good question. To be honest, I’m not totally, I’m, um, we haven’t had, we haven’t encountered that. I guess that’s something we’d have to consider. If they, if they’d apply it again, given the circumstances of the cancellation and, or the couple what I talked about is very extreme. So I think those cases probably no, but I think  but we haven’t we, wouldn’t rule it out forever. But in those couple of extreme cases, it’d be very unlikely. 

Charles: Okay. Now Catherine, our Vice President, Catherine Zhang, would like to say a few words in order of Thanks. 

Catherine: Yes, can you hear me? Yes.   Hi Mark. We are  like what Charles says, we are all very lucky to have you to share with us about latest changes and the trend about NAATI and I’m sure we have all benefited from your presentation today. So on behalf of the CITAA, I’d like to express our sincere thanks to you for spending time on Saturday morning, and for such an informative presentation as well as for answering so many questions from us, and thank you so much and have a great weekend. Thank you. 

Mark: Well, thank you very much. And thank you everyone for your attention and keep up the good work. And yeah any other questions that could pop up later, please don’t hesitate. We’ve worked hard to make NAATI more sort of accessible to people and more engaging so any questions firing through to info and I’ve made a note of the things, a couple of things I promise to send, after which I’ll send to Charles and can be distributed. So yeah all the, all the all the best for the rest of your meeting.

Charles: Mark, one last thing. Now as I mentioned at the beginning the this session is being recorded. Can we put our members section of our website? 

Mark: Yes indeed.  Okay. That’s I accepted in my role. I’m a public, you know, for the, for anyone in the industry. It’s all part of doing that. And so  absolutely no problem. 

Charles: Okay. Thank you. Thank you again and Catherine has thanked you on behalf of her association. So, thank you and this is the end of the formal PD session. So we, the floor is open. Anyone wants to have a chat just like we normally have a PD, the end of this and anyone wants to talk about anything or asking any questions, so you can unmute yourself. And Mark if you want to stay on you’re welcome. If you are, if you don’t want to stay on, you can leave anytime.

Mark: So Thank you, while I’m in the office, I will leave you guys to it while I’m in the office. I’ll get a few things to do and I’ll get on in forward the couples of emails I promise before I forget. Thank you. Bye.