Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia’s cultural diversity gives us the opportunity to enjoy more than one New Year celebration. Last weekend was the Chinese and Vietnamese New Year. Since almost 30 per cent of my electorate, according to the ABS, speaks either Vietnamese or a Chinese dialect at home you can imagine the size and vibrancy of the New Year celebrations in my area.

Over the last week I have tried to learn as much as I can about Vietnamese and Chinese culture so I can better understand the values and beliefs of my constituents. I wanted to do more than just read about different customs and so I decided to immerse myself in Asian culture over that particular week. One of the well-known Vietnamese New Year traditions is to visit 10 temples during the New Year. I started my pilgrimage on the Wednesday night, New Year’s Eve, when I visited the Phuoc Hue Temple in Wetherill Park to say my New Year’s best wishes to the community, followed by a visit to the Australian Chinese Buddhist Association Mingyue Lay Temple in Bonnyrigg.

The more temples I visited the more stories I was told about the history, culture and religion of the Vietnamese and Chinese people and the closer I felt to the Fowler community. On Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the Vietnamese Community in Australia, New South Wales chapter’s opening ceremony for the annual Tet festival. My congratulations go to the president, Mr Thanh Nguyen, as well as the internal vice president, Mr Than Nguyen, on a fantastic festival.

Despite the unusually hot weather over 40,000 people attended the festival over the three days. I strongly believe the success of the event was due to the hardworking nature of the VCA committee, who, I might add, are all volunteers. At the opening ceremony 27 Vietnamese students were recognised for achieving HSC scores in excess of 99 per cent. I think this is an incredible achievement and strongly applaud the students, their parents and their families.

On Saturday I also had the pleasure of attending two functions held by the Chinese community. During the day a New Year’s celebration luncheon was organised by Mr To Ha Huynh and Fairfield councillor Dennis Huynh for the New South Wales Indo-China Chinese Association. During the evening I attended the Timor Chinese Association’s New Year dinner organised by their President, Mr John Phillip Jong. The organisers of both functions advised me that New Year celebrations were held as a way to pay their respects and say thank you to their elders both past and present.

However, this year the associations were deeply saddened by the Queensland floods and wanted to raise funds to support Australians suffering, particularly in Queensland. Thus they used their New Year celebrations as a way to say thank you to Australia and to give back to a nation which had given so much to them. I felt very touched by the actions of the Chinese and Vietnamese communities.

As I spoke to more constituents I realised that they very much share a sense of gratitude to their adopted country. Mr Mieng Nguyen, a man who has been an active volunteer for the last 15 years and president of the New South Wales Friendly Elderly Vietnamese Association, stated at a luncheon I attended the other day that he and his association wanted to give as much as they could to their adopted country. They are keen to ensure that all their members become immersed in our shared culture and they went to quite an extent to assist me in their practices and traditions. One of things that the elderly association is looking at at the moment is setting up an internet cafe for elderly Vietnamese people so they can be in communication with their relatives but also so that they can participate in the benefits of modern technology.

Modern Australia is an integrated society of many backgrounds. I feel extremely fortunate to be able to represent such a multicultural community. In closing I would like to wish everyone in this Year of the Rabbit and, in the case of the Vietnamese, the Year of the Cat every happiness and success.