Culture is a critical influence on the way health professionals and consumers conceptualise depression and on the subsequent patterns of help-seeking and provision. This has been recognised by both Commonwealth and State Governments in the inclusion of cross cultural considerations and use of interpreter services in the planning and delivery of mental health services and in the development of specialised Trans-cultural mental health units. Despite this, very little research exists on the topic of depression among migrant communities in Australia. In particular, literature suggests that concepts of depression are not universal across cultures and that simple attempts to translate concepts from one culture into another ignore the way in which language is an active instrument of cultural construction. Diagnostic tools and screening instruments for depression cannot simply be translated without a deeper understanding of how notions of depression, sadness and dysthymia, emerging from Western biomedical cultures, are understood or have meaning within other cultures.