Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently had the pleasure of attending a celebration hosted by Indians in Sydney for the 78th anniversary of Indian Independence Day. I want to commend Indians in Sydney under the leadership of Nadeem Ahmed, his entire team and Gurnam Singh for putting together such a vibrant and meaningful showcase of the contribution that the Indian community has made not only to my home state of New South Wales and my home city of Sydney but all across Australia.

The Indian community has grown in number from the small thousands in the 1960s and the 1970s, when my own father arrived, to literally hundreds of thousands today. It's a community which, in a short space of time, has already made a massive contribution to Australian business life, economic life, cultural life and social capital and to the communities of our suburbs and cities. It was great to join with the Indian community not only in celebrating their own culture and traditions, which they do so much to preserve and share with us as other Australians, but also to see how much they have embraced all the opportunities Australian life has offered to them. There are many, many success stories of Indian-Australians succeeding in academia, in business, in culture, in the arts—and increasingly even in politics, I daresay! I'm sure that in the decades to come we will see many, many more contributions of the Indian community in Australia.

I do want to send this particular message to the Indian community, though, which is to say how welcome you are in Australia, how much we value the contribution you and your families have made to Australia and how much we appreciate your willingness to pitch in during times of hardship, whether it's during bushfires or floods. You have a willingness to share with other community members. That is what makes our country stronger, and the Indian-Australian community has played a great part in that.