Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Anyone who knows the Italian community well will tell you that they are passionate about the three Fs—football, food and family. To these I would like to add two more Fs—the Ferragosto festival and Five Dock—for I believe that Five Dock and the Ferragosto Italian street festival are the heart of the Italian community in Sydney. Last month, on 20 August, more than 150,000 people came to Five Dock to take part in Ferragosto, one of Sydney's most loved festivals. It was started in 1998 with just a few stores in a car park, and it has grown to become one of the premier festivals on our calendar. There was gelato, gnocchi and cannoli. There were pizza spring rolls—but I don't think they quite worked. But all the other food was amazing. It's a wonderful celebration of Italian food, culture and traditions, and I congratulate the Canada Bay council for putting the festival on.

Italian migrants were among the first waves of migrants to come to this country, and they were there when we needed them the most, building the Snowy Hydro and harvesting sugar cane in Far North Queensland. But they were also able to build this success story of multiculturalism that paved the way for other multicultural communities that came after them. Thank you very much.