Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion today which has bipartisan support across the parliament. Of course, I follow the member for Isaacs. It is a shame that he has chosen once again to attack the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection like he does so often. The member for Isaacs cannot help but engage in grubby politics in relation to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. He should 'take the 'log out of his own eye' because, in parliament, the member for Isaacs loves to divide, as do a lot of members on the Labor Party side. The question that was put to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection by the Labor Party the other day had as its very purpose to divide, to try and find a weakness, to get the minister to say something that they could exploit politically. That is the truth of the matter. It is absolutely grubby politics from those opposite.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:31 to 16:45

As I was saying before, I was calling out the member for Isaacs for his divisive comments on this issue around the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. I know the minister for immigration personally, and he is a very good man who cares deeply about his portfolio and cares deeply about Australian people from all walks of life. He has done a great service to this country in his role. He has saved lives, particularly in relation to stopping people smugglers.

This motion, of course, I do support. That issue was originally raised by the Leader of the Opposition. That was in relation to the fact that there were new One Nation senators in this place. I would have chosen to just ignore that fact. I think we already had strong bipartisan support on this issue. But I do support the motion, which the Leader of the Opposition and of course the Prime Minister have spoken on.

I believe Australia is a great country. It is the greatest country in the world to live in. We have a strong democracy, with freedom of race and religion. As a federal member of parliament, I have had the privilege of participating in many local citizenship ceremonies. It is great to see so many people wanting to move to Australia and embrace Australian citizenship. People want to come here. They want to live here. They want to build their lives here because Australia is a country of opportunity.

When I go to citizenship ceremonies in my electorate, I see how happy they are. People from right around the world, from different races, from different religions, take this pledge, where they say:

From this time forward, under God, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.

If people become citizens and they mean that pledge and they embrace Australia, we welcome them with open arms. People need, of course, to respect our country and culture, and they do, even if people come from parts of Asia, parts of the Middle East, India or wherever they are from. Yes, of course, they hang on to some of their own traditions and beliefs from where they were born, the food they eat and everything else, but many of them make a big effort to adopt the Australian way of life and to learn and speak English as well. It is very important. They love this country very much.

I think of Manmeet Sharma, an Indian bus driver who was murdered in Brisbane just a couple of weeks ago. I gave a speech on him in this place. He was a bus driver in Brisbane. He had a great work ethic. He worked really hard. He often helped new Indian people settle in to become Australian citizens here. He spoke at local functions in the electorate where he lived, and he sang as well. He was an Indian man—born Indian—who just settled into the Australian way of life and embraced it very much. What happened to him was an absolute tragedy.

I think of the Indian community where I spoke. There is a big Indian community in my electorate, particularly in the southern end. They had a memorial service for Manmeet the other day. They are Aussie people who love this country, and they play a big role in our area here.

In relation to Indigenous people as well, section (3) of the motion is:

(3) reaffirms its commitment to the process of reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, in the context of redressing their profound social and economic disadvantage …

We know that a previous Prime Minister, the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, said sorry to the Indigenous people, and that went a long way to reconciliation. We love Indigenous people. I know quite a few. I have a big Indigenous community in the northern part of my electorate, up around Deception Bay, and they play an important role.

There are some great Indigenous Australians who have been succeeding at a high level for a long time. Not all Indigenous people are disadvantaged. I think of our first Indigenous senator in this place, the first Indigenous parliamentarian in the Australian parliament, a Liberal senator from Queensland, the honourable Neville Bonner, who had little formal schooling, leaving school after he attained the third grade, apparently. In 1971, he became the first Aboriginal person to sit in the Commonwealth parliament when he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the Senate caused by the resignation of a Liberal senator for Queensland. Of course, Neville Bonner was returned at subsequent elections, from 1972 right through to 1980. Recently, his niece, Senator Joanna Lindgren, was also elected as a Queensland senator to this place. She is not here now, but she was elected.

Last Thursday, we saw the release of the seventh Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage report from the Productivity Commission. The report found that significant progress has been made across education, health and economic participation. The Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, 'said the progress was the result of concerted effort across government, but a great deal more needed to be done to address Indigenous disadvantage, including building the evidence of what worked'. He said that 'there are positives to take out of the report', specifically, reducing mortality rates of children, increasing year 12 attainment rates and school participation, and improving Indigenous employment rates and that 'this is good news and should be celebrated'. As the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, coalition minister Nigel Scullion, said:

The progress we have made in these areas is a positive development and critical to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage, but … there is … more to be done.

He praised all levels of government and different governments for their help.

Of course, unless you are an Indigenous person, you came to Australia as a migrant or are a descendant of immigrants. We are a multicultural society. This is the foundation Australia was built on, and this does make Australia great. We have all benefited from it, and we all embrace it, whether it is eating out at Thai, Chinese, Indian—whatever it is, we are happy to embrace it.

I want to talk quickly about the Asian work ethic because I know that Asians are some of the most hardworking people around. In my business, some of my customers ran Vietnamese bakeries, and these men and women used to come in at three o'clock in the morning to start their bakery and would not leave until eight o'clock at night. This went on seven days a week. I said to a guy I know, Tran, who runs the bakery at Banyo, 'When was the last time you had a holiday?' and he said, 'Five years ago.' These people have a wonderful work ethic, and they really do make a big difference.

I remember that in primary school, in years 2 and 3 at St Flannan's at Zillmere, there were a couple of brothers, Fretz and Jonathan. They were from the Philippines. They were very well respected by our classmates. When I trained in judo from the age of seven right through to my early 20s, I represented Queensland with a good friend of mine, a guy called Jason Gavin, whose mum was Malaysian. I mention that because, as a man in my 40s, I have grown up in a multicultural society, and we never looked upon these people that I grew up with as anything different than Aussies. Yes, they might have been born in a different country, but they were Australians. We are a country of opportunity, and, for anyone who wishes to make their mark in the story of Australia, we welcome them. I support the motion.

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