Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week I joined the Vietnamese community in my electorate to welcome in the lunar new year. At the 'East Meets West' festival in Footscray, at Quang Minh Temple in Braybrook and at the Tet celebrations at Sandown on the other side of Melbourne, thousands and thousands of Australians gathered to celebrate the new year and welcome in the year of the goat.

The celebrations were particularly big this year because 2015 is the 40th anniversary of Vietnamese migration to this country—and what a 40 years it has been. Today Vietnamese-born Australians make up our fifth largest migrant community. There are now over 200,000 Vietnamese-born people living in Australia. They are a shining example of what multiculturalism brings to our country. The Vietnamese community has given us many doctors, lawyers, small business owners, artists and activists who have contributed much to Australian society. Where would we be without Australians like Footscray's own Tan Le, former Young Australian of the Year, a community advocate and successful telecommunications entrepreneur in San Francisco; Hieu Van Le, the Governor of South Australia; Anh Do, the comedian, actor and author of The Happiest Refugee; Anh's brother Khoa, another former Young Australian of the Year, in 2005 and a lawyer, screenwriter and philanthropist; one of my favourite fiction writers, Nam Le; my favourite YouTube producer, Natalie Tran; and, of course, Luke Nguyen, the world-famous chef and TV personality? These people are exceptional individuals who have made enormous contributions in their fields, to their communities and to the Australian identity.

On this 40th anniversary, we should pause to remember and take note of the fact that many, many members of the Vietnamese-Australian community were asylum seekers. Their arrival in Australia was treated with great trepidation in some corners. Many expressed fears that the Vietnamese asylum seekers coming to this country were 'different' to past migrant or refugee groups, that Australia's cultural values would be swamped by their arrival or that they would entrench Asian crime gangs in our country. The Australian Vietnamese community often had to confront racism and hostility as a result of this prejudice. But, despite it all, doubters were proved comprehensively wrong. They were on the wrong side of history. Australia's Vietnamese community have shown the strength of Australian multiculturalism, and they have shown that we have nothing to fear and much to gain from refugees in our community. We should learn a lesson from this as a nation about the way that we treat subsequent asylum seeker communities following in their footsteps. They have much to offer us and we have little to fear from them.

Throughout the streets of my home suburb today are banners put up by the Vietnamese community saying, 'Thank you, Australia'. They are everywhere in the streets of my community. These banners have touched me, but they have also embarrassed me, because as a member of parliament I am the one who should be saying thank you to the Vietnamese-Australian community. So, in this place today, I send a very clear message to the Vietnamese-Australian community. I say: thank you. Thank you for everything you have done to make Australia the country it is today, thank you for coming to Australia and thank you for repaying our faith in you. I wish everyone in the Australian Vietnamese community a happy Year of the Goat.

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