Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also commend the member for Gellibrand for taking the initiative on this motion regarding the anniversary of the arrival of Vietnamese refugees. The term 'boat people' entered the Australian language in the 1970s with the arrival of the first wave of boats carrying people seeking asylum from the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Over half the Vietnamese population was displaced in these years and, while most fled to neighbouring Asian countries, some embarked on that dangerous journey by boat to Australia.

The conflict in Vietnam engulfed the neighbouring countries of Cambodia and Laos. I have been to Laos twice, just a few months ago and early in 1989 when it had opened up to tourists, and I have seen the legacy still affecting people in that country today from that war. In 1975, communist forces prevailed in all three countries causing millions to try and flee the new regimes. This was the beginning of a great migration and we will recognise its 40-year anniversary next year.

After the Vietnam War, enormous refugee camps were set up along the Thai border as hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and citizens from other countries fled the brutality and horror. The camps were overcrowded and sometimes violent, and people lived in them for years and years waiting for the chance of resettlement. It is estimated that approximately two million people sought to escape from South Vietnam after the communist victory.

In April 1976, the first boat arrived in Australia carrying refugees who had bypassed formal migration procedures. Desperate to find a new home, they were accepted as migrants on humanitarian grounds. It is interesting to see through the lens of this chamber today and our society today the spirit of bipartisanship that existed back then. It was not the case that everyone was accepting, but it would be nice to have a government and an opposition that were able to make decisions in the national interest about offering people a helping hand when we can, realistically, rather than the political point-scoring that sometimes is associated with people who are refugees arriving in Australia. Remember: we are, as a nation, a country that has ratified the UN convention on refugees.

By 1979, there was a continued outflow of refugees from Vietnam, including boats reaching Australia's northern coast. I actually remember that footage on TV. After assessment by Australian officials, airlifts to Australia from crowded refugee camps in South-East Asia were arranged for refugees. The Australian Refugee Advisory Council was established to recommend improvements in the way Australia handled this increasing number of refugees. By 1981, 56 boats with 2,100 people had reached Australia and, in fact, a total of 55,000 Vietnamese had arrived in Australia.

This is a story that we as a nation can be proud of and should remember and should tell. It is good to see that new waves of literature are coming out where people tell the story, their family story, that Australian story with a Vietnamese flavour. Obviously, the story of Australia has always been a story of migration, apart from the original Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who arrived here more than 40,000 years ago. Since then there has been a 226-year-long migration program, with the United Kingdom being the major source of migrants for all but two of those years. In these last couple of years we have turned towards Asia for our No. 1 source of migrants.

Thirty-nine years ago, the first Vietnamese refugees arrived on our shores, and we as a nation are all the richer for their arrival, as noted by speakers on both sides of the chamber. Many took that dangerous journey by boat. They came to Australia with nothing but innovation, determination and a willingness to work hard. They raised families, started businesses, studied hard, built homes, formed community organisations and weaved themselves into the fabric of Australian community, and they particularly do well in terms of looking after new members of the community who arrive from Vietnam. So many of them in Queensland settled on the south side of Brisbane in my electorate of Moreton and also the electorate of Oxley.

Many of the Vietnamese who travelled to Australia went through extremely traumatising ordeals, and I am glad that there will perhaps be more movies and documentaries telling that tale. A population-based study on the long-term effect of psychological trauma on the mental health of Vietnamese refugees and their families resettled in Australia gave a background to the harmful effects of mass trauma on their wellbeing. It happens in any war. The reality is that the fall of Saigon was a very sad moment for all Vietnamese people, especially for those who believe in liberty, freedom and democracy, and many of them still gather every year to acknowledge that event. There are 500 Australians who died there and served there, and there are more stories to be told.

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