Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last December Australians across the country witnessed acts of appalling violence and brutality that were committed by their fellow Australians. These, of course, took place in Sydney, New South Wales, and the acts of violence and brutality that I refer to have come to be known as the Cronulla riots. At the very outset I want to condemn those who committed those acts of shocking violence and brutality. They are abhorrent and have absolutely no place in this country. Any of those who have been caught should receive the full force of the law.

This event last year stirred up great debate and great interest in our country. It stirred up all kinds of questions: questions of citizenship and identity, questions regarding immigration and multiculturalism. Why did it do this? It did this because all of us, the overwhelming number of our 20 million, did not like what we saw on our television sets. We did not like the image of Australians committing violence against other Australians. It raised the fundamental question about whether our country might still be clutching at remnants of the White Australia Policy. It raised the fundamental question about whether there might still be racial overtones in the DNA of Australians. Given the sensitivity of this topic and this question, it is little wonder, I would suggest, that there is in our communities and our suburbs enormous interest and perhaps concern and anxiety. I should say that my office has been overwhelmed in recent days and weeks on this subject.

I welcome this debate very much. I think it is an important debate. I think it is a healthy debate. I think we need this debate, and I encourage all Australians to engage in this important conversation with each other, with their neighbours, with colleagues in their places of work and throughout the community. The Treasurer gave a presentation last week to the Sydney Institute, and I will speak on the Treasurer’s comments in a moment. I also refer to two state Labor members of parliament who are calling for a review of the place of multiculturalism in our country. I read with interest their presentations in the Courier-Mail.

In terms of the Treasurer’s comments, I want to say at the outset that I completely and entirely support his presentation and his speech. I think that I am well qualified to speak on this topic, this theme, that was raised by him about identity, values and citizenship. I consider myself to be an Australian. I have a deep love for this country. I think I am well qualified to speak on this subject because I live this subject. I am the embodiment of the themes that have come out from the Treasurer’s speech and from conversations similar to it. I am a migrant to this country—I was not born in Australia. My mother is Chinese; my father is British. My brother was also not born in this country. However, my sister was, and she is certainly an Australian. I am married to a wonderful woman: my wife, Huyen. She is of Vietnamese ethnicity and background. So we are a kind of salad bowl, if you like. I prefer the term ‘salad bowl’ because I think it describes the colour of my family.

I reiterate that I fully support the Treasurer’s remarks. I endorse his sentiments. I think there is nothing really remarkable about what he said. If one looks very closely at his speech, one sees that there is nothing that is contentious or controversial. He talked about the supremacy of the role of parliament, about the Constitution being the pinnacle of this country, about the importance of the rule of law—enacted by this and other parliaments in this country. He talked about representation by elected members, about the separation of church and state. We are a secular state; we are not a theocracy, and this must be accepted and respected by those who seek to make this country their home. He talked about a dominant culture, just as there is a dominant language.

English is our dominant language. It is a product of history that our language is English and that our culture is grounded in a Judeo-Christian heritage. There is no other reason for it. It might well have been Chinese or Spanish had those empires sent sailors to this part of the world centuries ahead of the British. But the fact is that, in the last millennium, it was the British who settled this land. Surely there is nothing sinister about this. Surely there is nothing contentious.

With respect to the pledge of loyalty, I go to citizenship ceremonies myself. I have had the great honour of presiding over them in my nearly five years of representing my constituency of Ryan in this wonderful, democratic chamber of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia.

The Treasurer talked about the belief in freedoms—freedoms to publish, to associate and to believe, and to live by our beliefs in equal opportunity. Men and women are equal. One gender is not superior to the other. So I fully support the Treasurer’s remarks.

But what was interesting, I think, was what the Treasurer did not say. I would like to expand on this slightly. This is a very complex and challenging topic. Is someone an Australian only because they are born in this country? Is someone an Australian because they can prove they have a citizenship certificate or because they have that little booklet with the Australian crest on it—the passport? I would hope that none of us in this place would believe that that defines who is an Australian. This is an important question for us.

Let me start with an indisputable fact. Australia is an immigrant nation. We are of the new world. We are a product of historical activity and circumstance. Some of us here are descendants of those who came here by boat in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of us here are descendants of those who came here by boat in the great wave of migration after World War II, escaping the conflicts of the old world to find opportunity in the new world. Some of us here are descendants of those who came here by boat after the Vietnam War. Some of us who have become Australians are so because we have been genuine political refugees. We have travelled thousands of nautical miles ourselves by boat, escaping the persecutions in other, less fortunate places than this wonderful country. Others, like me and my family, are migrants who came here by jumbo jet.

One in five Australians were not born in this country, but let it never be said of them that they are any less Australian and have any less love for or commitment to this country than that of any Australian-born prime minister, who would have a love of this land, any Australian-born soldier who would put his life on the line for this country or any Australian-born lifesaver, any medical practitioner or indeed any Indigenous Australian born in the central lands of this country. Let it never be said that this is not an immigrant country. Let it never be said that this is not a generous and tolerant land. Let it never be said that this is not a welcoming and warm country at its heart and soul.

But I think this debate can be expanded somewhat in its particular focus on any group in our community. Recent debate has focused on the Muslim community. Whilst a handful of Muslims would call for an overhaul of our fabric of life, recrafted and remade in their image, all of us know that an overwhelming number of Muslim Australians are as committed to their future in this country as any one of us sitting in this parliament.

I think the debate should be widened. I think the focus should be widened to any individual, any person, any group who would seek to hijack the future of our country and all it stands for. Let us be brutally honest in this debate and acknowledge that any group in our community or any individual can do things or advocate things which stand against the spirit of our country and the values we strongly cherish and must defend. This is not the exclusive domain of a Muslim, a Christian, a Chinese, a Vietnamese or a Greek; it is the domain of anyone. We must not focus on faith; we must focus on the individual and the group. A lot has been said and written about the place of multiculturalism in recent times. At another time I would like to engage in that debate. (Time expired)