Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We've been hearing for a couple of years now about attempts by the Cambodian People's Party to coerce students in Australia into supporting the party back in Cambodia. We hear about financial inducements, threats and threats against family at home—any way they can find to ensure that students in Australia and residents in Australia and citizens of Australia do not speak out against the government of Cambodia. Of course that is not acceptable, and can I quietly urge the government to be more active in this particular area of foreign influence, because we're talking here about some very young people in the early stages in their adult lives. They're trying to develop an education, trying to find their place in the world, in many cases trying to live in a new country, and they're feeling this incredible threat over their head on a daily basis. They tell me they literally look over their shoulder when they arrive home, to ensure that the garage door is closed before they get out of their car—things that we shouldn't have to do in this country.

This was brought to my attention—apart from what I'd been reading in the media—by a man in my community called Sawathey, who came here in the eighties. He's been here for quite a while. He's an extraordinary man, who came to Australia during the time of the Khmer Rouge and has built a life here. He established legal centres that gave legal advice to people who couldn't afford it. He has made an extraordinary contribution here and is trying to live his life here now, as a mature adult, and is still feeling the weight and the burden of his first country on him as he goes about his life here in Australia, and that's an extraordinary thing.

I just want to say to the people in this parliament and to those out there who have never fled a regime—and I'm one of them, by the way; I never have; I've lived in a country where you can decide to live a life and believe you can achieve it and choose to be here. Imagine if you'd fled a country that you loved, where your heart was, your memories were and, quite often, where your family is. You would not really be here until you could go home and you decided not to. While you can't go home, you don't really choose. And that's not me saying that they're not committed to Australia, because they are; refugees commit with their heads in a way that most of us don't and they make this life work. But it's like breaking up with a person you love. You break up twice: once when you break up and once again when you grieve for the fact that you wouldn't go back. When the people who come to Australia from violent regimes, traumatised, know that they could return, that's the moment when their lives settle.

For Cambodian refugees in Australia, that's probably not going to happen in their lifetime. But at least we—as people in power, in government—can listen to the thousands of Cambodians in this country who are saying they are afraid, who are saying that that history and their trauma continue through their life right now; that they can feel Cambodia reaching out into their community and tapping them on the shoulder; that they know people in the Cambodian community who observe them and who report on them and who threaten them. If we're not prepared to deal with that, we're not doing what we, as a responsible government and opposition, should do. We should be making sure that our Australian residents and citizens can live safely, and, if any foreign government is causing our residents to feel fear, we should be having something to say about it and we should be doing so in the strongest possible language.

We are an incredibly rich country because of the people who have come here and call Australia their home. We have the world in us. There isn't a country you'd rather be in at the moment, with the way the world is going global, with the way people cross borders, with the way they'll do that online and with the way businesses are no longer necessarily based in a geographic location. We have everything we need to flourish in this world, and part of that is because people have chosen to come here and live. They've had different experiences from the rest of us. And that sounds terrible—that's not the way I meant it. They have different experiences. Each group that comes has had different experiences, different language, different philosophy and different ways of perceiving the world. And we need to make sure that they can make the most significant contribution they can. In order to do that, they need to do it safely. We need to act on this. It's not good enough. So, again, I urge the government to have a look at this and take action.

Debate adjourned.

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