Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon and the beginning of the mass resettlement of Vietnamese migrants in Australia—a sad day for Vietnam but a happy day for modern Australia This event saw hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese forced to flee their country in search of refuge. Many made the journey from Vietnam to places like Pulau Bidong, a refugee camp in Malaysia, and then to places like the Midway Hostel in Footscray of my electorate as part of a regional resettlement agreement developed to accommodate this acute humanitarian crisis. They arrived with next to no resources and unable to speak the language in a country that was at best apprehensive about their presence.

The Vietnamese began to arrive in Australia shortly after the abolition of the White Australia policy but with the attitudes and cultural reflexes of this period laying remnant. How things have changed. Today Vietnamese born make up the fifth largest migrant community in Australia and the Vietnamese Australian community is the third largest ethnic group in Australia from a non-English-speaking country. There are now over 200,000 Vietnamese Australian people living in our country. The land on which the Midway Hostel formerly stood in Footscray in my electorate is now governed by a council with a Vietnamese Australian mayor: Maribyrnong City Council's Nam Quach. In just 40 years the Vietnamese Australian community has changed the face of my electorate and made an enormous contribution to the economy, society and government of Melbourne's west.

This motion seeks to congratulate the Vietnamese Australian community for its positive integration. While I agree that modern Australia would be significantly less vibrant without the Vietnamese Australian community, I would, with respect to the generous intent of this motion, phrase it slightly differently. Vietnamese migrants did not simply put on akubra hats and recite bush poetry when they reached our shores. They have not just integrated with Australian society; they have enriched it and added new dimensions to the Australian identity. We have learnt much from the values revered in the Australian Vietnamese community—values like hard work, the pursuit of excellence and community and familial obligation. New ideas and new ways of doing things in the Vietnamese community have enriched our businesses, our hospitals, our schools, our cuisine, our literature and our culture.

Immigration from Vietnam and the subsequent flourishing of the Vietnamese community in Australia has changed our nation for the better. Vietnamese immigration to Australia fundamentally changed the way that Australia sees itself. It gave us a practical experience of diversity and multiculturalism unlike any we had previously experienced. We are no longer a monocultural society, a colonial outpost with a fear of a yellow peril to our north; we are a multicultural, pluralistic and welcoming society largely free from the kinds of racial intolerance and segregation that immigrants left behind when they came to Australia. The Vietnamese Australian community is a shining example of how multiculturalism makes good countries great.

Earlier this month the Vietnamese community in Australia launched a fundraising campaign in conjunction with Rotary International, Disaster Support Nepal Australia and the Mounties group to raise money for the victims of the earthquake in April. In May, prominent Vietnamese Australian and self-taught singer and songwriter Hong-Anh released an album titled Boat People Dance, which focuses on the daily plight of refugees and also raises money for charity. This year, the Vietnamese community in Victoria raised over half a million dollars for the Royal Children's Hospital Appeal as part of the Good Friday Appeal.

Whenever anyone involved in these philanthropic causes is interviewed or asked to comment on their work it is common to hear them explain that their work is simply giving back to the Australian community or saying thank you. I think we can now all safely say that this is the wrong way around, and that we should be thanking the Vietnamese Australian community for the contribution they have made to Australia over the past 40 years. During a time when many ethnic groups feel anxious about much of the rhetoric surrounding the citizenship debate in this country, remembering the Vietnamese Australian community and their contribution is particularly valuable. Last month, a government backbencher got up in this place and declared that 'multiculturalism has failed'. Nothing could be further from the truth. I wish that he could have been with me and thousands of my constituents in Melbourne's west, where we watched fireworks over the Maribyrnong River for the lunar new year at the Quang Minh Temple, or celebrated and ate street food at the annual East Meets West Festival in Footscray in my electorate or stood in solidarity with the Vietnamese Australian community to pay tribute to Malcolm Fraser's passing.

In 2015, 28 per cent of Australians are born overseas, the highest percentage in 120 years. Over 40 per cent of the people living in my electorate were born in another country and two-thirds of them had a parent born in another country. My electorate would look extraordinarily different without the benefits of multiculturalism. We are a culturally diverse, pluralistic society, and this has not happened by accident. It has been government policy for decades, across governments from both sides of politics. It has happened because we realise the immense advantages that come with multiculturalism. I thank the Vietnamese Australian community for their role in promoting the benefits of multiculturalism, and their prominent role in Australian society. I, too, could personally thank many friends from the Vietnamese Australian community, but I will not hazard doing that in five minutes because it would take far longer to acknowledge all of them personally.

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