Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also would like to commend the member for Scullin for the motion. I'm going to talk specifically on my own electorate. We start by saying no to racism. I have to say that in my electorate of Leichhardt we have a very significant Chinese population that basically has been there since the first population. When the British arrived up in our region, so did our Chinese, looking for the goldmines, et cetera.

An honourable member: And the bananas.

And bananas and market gardens, et cetera. And they have been absolutely loved and embraced, and they are absolutely 100 per cent part of our community.

Moving forward into recent times, as we've developed as a tourism destination, first of all, a large visiting population came from Japan. Whilst many in our region sort of looked with a level of curiosity at these new visitors, they certainly very quickly embraced them, and we've now had a very large Japanese resident population living in Cairns for many years. As you go down and see the shops, you see a lot of Japanese shops, sign-writing in Japanese language, et cetera. They're now part of our community. In fact, we have one of the few regional consuls, a Japanese consul that's based in Cairns. The Australia Japan Society is well and truly embraced.

When you look at migration more broadly in our area, first came the Europeans. Very closely, almost at the same time, the Chinese came in. Postwar migration was from Eastern Europe, the Italians and the Greeks and large numbers of populations from that area, who were broadly embraced and are very much part of our society and our community. In more recent times, we've had a whole group of people coming in here. We've had the Hmong community from Cambodia, who are now well and truly established. We've had the Bhutanese more recently. We now have quite a significant population of Congolese. Again, all of these populations are being embraced. I have to say, you just don't see the racism that we're talking about—possibly in metropolitan areas. Certainly in our regional areas we are fighting very hard to keep these populations there.

Now we move onto the Chinese. After the Japanese visitors, we then started to come into the Chinese. And I've got to say that, without the Chinese, our economy would not have grown to the extent that it has. As they formed a larger portion of our community, of our visiting community, suddenly all of these shopfronts changed from Japanese to Chinese. They were welcomed, they were embraced, and through the whole process we have continued to welcome them. As a community, as an electorate, I see very little evidence of racism against a particular group—and that's the way it should be.

When we talk about our First Australians, let me tell you that I am very proud to boast, with all the controversy that's happening with Captain Cook and the statues at the moment, that, from our perspective, our Indigenous people in Cooktown acknowledge Captain Cook as the first European to embrace reconciliation. In fact, the first act of reconciliation happened in Cooktown with Captain Cook and the local Indigenous population. That should be celebrated; it shouldn't be whitewashed. And to suggest that we should be removing that because of history suggests that we should be flattening the pyramids; Angkor Wat in Cambodia should be destroyed; so should the Mayan temples. Goodness me, what about the arena in Rome where all those slaves lost their lives? It's just an absolute nonsense. I would say to you that I am absolutely committed to fighting against racism, and in my electorate we have been very, very proud of the multinational content of our community. We love, irrespective of what culture you come from. It enriches our society, and I think that we must continue to make sure that we send that message out there. We say the same to our Chinese friends. Let me tell you, our tourism economy was the first to fall over the cliff when the Chinese flights stopped. We are really looking forward to those flights recommencing in the near future. (Time expired.)

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