House debates

Monday, 27 October 2014

Private Members' Business

Vietnamese-Australian Community

12:54 pm

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

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) in 2015, 40 years will have passed since the arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Australia at the end of the Vietnam War; and

(b) during this time, the Vietnamese-Australian community has grown from approximately 700 Vietnam-born Australians to approximately 185,000 Vietnam-born Australians, and 220,000 Australians speaking Vietnamese at home;

(2) acknowledges the contribution of Vietnamese-Australians to our society in the past 40 years, with Vietnamese-Australians becoming leading figures in business, politics, the arts, and in our communities;

(3) notes that the Vietnamese Community in Australia, or VCA, is marking the 40th anniversary through a series of events, programs and exhibitions; and

(4) encourages all Australians to take part in the celebrations to learn more about the culture and heritage of Vietnamese-Australians.

Next year marks the anniversary of an event that dramatically changed my electorate and our country for the better: 2015 is the 40th anniversary of the mass settlement of Vietnamese refugees in Australia.

Only 40 years ago, the Vietnamese community in Australia numbered just 700 people. At this time, Australia had only recently begun peering beyond the insular, bigoted legislative barricades of the White Australia policy to embrace the broader, more diverse world outside. But, with the first major arrivals of Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam War, those barricades began to tumble down, not just in the letter of our law but in the lived experience of Australian multiculturalism. The migration of Vietnamese refugees to Australia 40 years ago changed our nation and changed it for the better. Today, there are around 220,000 Australians who speak Vietnamese in their homes.

I am proud to represent a seat, an electorate, that has been the welcoming mat for the Vietnamese community in Victoria and that gave these refugees and their families the safety, freedom and democracy that the government of Vietnam denied them. It was the hostels of Melbourne's west that provided refuge to the Vietnamese families finding their way in an alien world. The hostels like Wiltona and Midway in my electorate provided them with a bed to sleep on, and the suburbs like Footscray and Sunshine gave them the community in which to rebuild their lives.

This gift of safety and freedom has been repaid to our nation a thousand times over through the contribution of the Vietnamese-Australian community in our society today. They are now the doctors in our hospitals and the lawyers in our courts. They are the comedians and commentators, like Anh Do and Natalie Tran, who help us to laugh at ourselves and examine what it means to be Australian. They are the writers and leaders like Nam Le, Carina Hoang, Khoa Do and Hieu Van Le, telling stories about the evolving nature of what it means to be Australian. Finally, they are our friends and family.

The Vietnamese-Australian community has had an enormous impact on the way that Australians think about themselves and those around them. In fact, the 2013 Scanlon social cohesion survey found that, today, 84 per cent of Australians agree that multiculturalism has been good for Australia, and 60 per cent agree that multiculturalism strengthens the Australian way of life.

As I said in my first speech, Australian multiculturalism is one of our nation's greatest assets, and in many ways we have the Australian-Vietnamese community to thank for embedding it in our community, for among the many things that the Vietnamese-Australian community has shown and taught Australians is what a community of refugees can bring to those who grant them refuge. That is why I also noted in my first speech, with disappointment, the current government's moves to cut our offshore humanitarian intake of asylum seekers to 13,750, down from the quota of 20,000 welcomed under the previous Labor government.

The Vietnamese-Australian community knows the impact of this policy better than most. Even today, we see a crackdown in Vietnam on protesters, unionists and religious groups by the Vietnamese government, leading more Vietnamese asylum seekers to seek refuge in Australia. These ongoing human rights abuses should not be ignored in Australia, and I welcome reports that 50 Vietnamese asylum seekers have been resettled in Perth in recent weeks. I am proud of the previous Labor government's record in increasing our offshore asylum seeker intake to record levels, and I hope that one day future governments will have the vision and compassion to do the same.

The Vietnamese-Australian community is holding a number of exhibitions, events and celebrations to mark their 40th anniversary in Australia, including displays of Vietnamese music and dance and social programs designed to give back to the community. I am pleased to say that many of these events will be in my electorate. We will see the establishment of a local park to honour the Australian soldiers killed in the Vietnam War in defence of the freedom of the Vietnamese people, soup kitchens bringing Vietnamese food to Melbourne's homeless, a major contribution to the Melbourne Royal Children's Hospital through their Good Friday Appeal, and publications on the history and contributions of our Vietnamese-Australians over the past 40 years.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard work of the committee members of the Victorian chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia on this agenda for Victoria under the leadership of President Bon Nguyen and to acknowledge their vision and determination in making sure that this important occasion is not neglected. In closing, I would like to give a personal message to the Vietnamese community of Australia. To the Vietnamese community of Australia, I say : [Vietnamese language not transcribed]. I am sure I did not get it right, but I can say that in the modern, multicultural Australia we are a forgiving people. I am immeasurably thankful for the contribution that the Vietnamese community has made in my electorate and in the broader nation.

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