Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are many good people in this chamber who want to talk about this important topic. I have recently been reading a book by Laurence Rees about the Holocaust. How did the Holocaust happen? How did an elected government bring in a policy that ultimately led to the destruction of millions of people around the world? That book talks about dealing with refugees in the 1930s. The Western world—nations such as America and Great Britain—that should have done more failed to do more simply because they had not taken their populations along on the journey. One thing we as political leaders have to do is take our populations along on the journey. My contribution to this discussion tonight will be about a small community that has taken its population along on the journey so that refugees can be seen as a benefit, not as a sheer cost.

There is a small town in the electorate of Mallee called Nhill. It is a beautiful small town. They could not get people to work in Luv-a-Duck, to expand their employment opportunities. The kindergarten was nearly shut down and the school was not full. A guy by the name of John Millington, who was a compassionate man, with the assistance of his wife, began to look at how we could sponsor and bring refugees in to fill a labour force. But it has turned out to be so much more than that. It has turned out to be something that has not only brought a labour force into the town but changed the culture of the town and opened the hearts of the people in the town. There has been a recent report that it has also contributed $41 million to the economic activity of a town of about 3,000 people. It is extraordinary. The school is now full and the kindergarten is now full. It is very hard to find a house, and in fact there are new houses being built in this town.

But there were some things that needed to be done. There needed to be strong leadership in the host community. You had to think about these people as not just a workforce, because if you are bringing a male in you have to bring their family in. They have to have a sense of family, so you have to think about how it is done. There had to be people in that community who could integrate people. A small example is that, when they would arrive at Melbourne airport, they would see yellow taxis. The police force who had been killing them overseas drove yellow cars, so they had instant fear from seeing a yellow taxi because they thought their lives were at risk.

An honourable member: It probably was, being in a taxi!

Maybe it was, getting into a taxi in Melbourne! They needed someone to help them integrate. There needed to be some initial accommodation for new arrivals, there needed to be support for new families, there needed to be some management of the degree of cultural adjustment and there also needed to be the potential for the community to embrace them, and it has actually worked. I say to people who are a little apprehensive about Australia taking in more refugees that it is really about what services we are going to provide, what communities we are going to put people in and how we are going to get them integrated into our community. I think, if we think of it with that perspective and we put that work around it, we can actually do this.

This private member's motion, which I was very happy to have Tim come and suggest to me, is really about private industries and private communities saying, 'How can we play an active role in bringing people out of these camps?' These are beautiful people. The Karen refugees are very dear to my heart. There are still 140,000 in the refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border. When I went there they gave me a big Karen outfit. They told me it is what they give people who are of significance and power, but I am not sure. It could be the outfit they give to someone who is the court jester. They could have been having a bit of fun with me—we laugh a lot.

It has brought so much to the community. I am so proud of humble country folk who are being part of the solution, not part of the problem. They are saying, 'Come to our town and settle here.' We can replicate this in many towns across Australia, and it will bring so much good. I reckon private sponsoring really needs a push along so that we can bring people from those camps, integrate them into our communities and lift those communities, not just for the economic activity but also for the sense of worth, purpose and soul that this brings to our town.

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