Traumatised Yazidi refugees who settled in a regional NSW city have been provided with translators for counselling sessions who didn't speak their language.
A community of about 1000 Yazidi refugees who fled persecution by ISIS fighters in Iraq have lived in the Riverina regional city of Wagga Wagga for five years.
Yazidi people are a religious minority group who speak the Kurmanji language.
Greens MP Sue Higginson told a budget estimates hearing on Thursday that most members of the Yazidi community were severely traumatised and had issues accessing therapy.
During questions to NSW Multiculturalism Minister Mark Coure, she said some Kurmanji speakers had been provided with translators who spoke Arabic for counselling sessions.
Mr Coure said he was aware of the Yazidi community in Wagga Wagga, and that a record $28 million had been allocated over the next two years to support multicultural communities.
One of the community's key concerns was poor access to translators, and not being able to nominate their own translators - despite having accredited translators in their community.
Ms Higginson said that after five years there was growing evidence the community had become a failed settlement.
Multicultural NSW chief executive Joseph La Posta said he would investigate the concerns, adding that translation and interpreting was an accredited profession.
"If that's a part of government, or whether that's an NGO or others, I'm happy to work with those relevant people in that space to make sure of the cultural appropriation," he said.
Mr La Posta said that during the ISIS conflict the government had difficulties providing translators and interpreters to the Yazidi and other affected communities.
He said a lack of accredited Kurmanji and Kurdish speakers in NSW was not the fault of the government.
"I think it's more just the speed at which we tried to bring 12,000 people to this country to make them safe and settled quickly," Mr La Posta said.
He said a government scholarship program training interpreters and translators had grown to 450 places in 2020, and that Kurmanji was one of the program's focus areas.
