Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to give a shout-out to the Hazara Shamama Association, a fantastic local community organisation in my electorate that has been helping Hazara people settle into life in Australia since 2009. They help with citizenship preparation, welfare and all sorts of other community support. I met with them on the weekend and was absolutely blown away by the beautiful ceremony they had to recognise people who had contributed to the bushfire response. Many of these people are still asylum seekers who, under this government, have been waiting for years, with their lives stuck in limbo, for their cases to be processed. To be frank, many of these people have less than nothing themselves, yet they came together wanting to show their commitment to Australia—their adopted country, as they see it. They donated $10,000 to Wildlife Victoria, and we received the cheque. But utterly beautiful was the fact that 50 of the local Hazara community put up their hands because they wanted to do something in response. They put out a call through the community group to ask: who would like to go to New South Wales? They drove five hours to New South Wales to help farmers rebuild fences. The photos are just beautiful. These are farmers who have lost everything and who, as they said, have no hope. But the Hazara people, who have been through so much—they have been persecuted and have seen their families murdered in front of them—said, 'We know what it's like to have lost everything. We know what it's like to have no hope left.' Hence, they made the journey, often by boat, to a safer country where they thought they could live. So they went up there, and they sat and spent days with these farmers, trying to give them a little hope. They rebuilt the fences and had a great time camping out, which was really lovely to see. I congratulate everyone involved. Of course, they're just one of many local groups who contributed to the bushfire response.

The other thing I want to do is give a shout-out to the Bangladeshi community. Bangladesh gave a gift to the world 20 years ago, which was International Mother Language Day. On 21 February we celebrated the 20th International Mother Language Day. It's a UN recognised day devoted to celebrating culturally and linguistically diverse communities and promoting multilingualism. My electorate, which covers most of the City of Greater Dandenong, is the most multicultural place in the whole of Australia. Every day, when people close their front doors at night, more than 200 languages are spoken. Of course, Aboriginal Australia had more than 300 native languages, and right on our doorstep our closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, is the most linguistically diverse place in the world, with over 800 languages still spoken today.

Of course, we also shout out to the language martyrs from Bangladesh. International Mother Language Day was first put in place to commemorate the students who lost their lives back in 1971, when modern Bangladesh was formed. It was separated from East Pakistan, and that was generated by a fight for the right to speak Bangla language. That was part of their identity. Now it's the sixth most common language spoken in the world. So I congratulate the language school on their International Mother Language Day celebration.