Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for Chifley. I thank him for bringing this matter before the House today and I thank the previous speakers for their wonderful comments about our very vibrant Filipino diaspora in Australia. Macarthur, my electorate, is home to a really vibrant community of Filipino Australians who enrich our society in many, many ways. We have a very multicultural community in Macarthur; around 30 per cent of our population were born overseas, and around 5,000 of those are Filipino Australians. They certainly enrich our community and help us make Macarthur a wonderful place to live, work and learn in.

This is a momentous year for relations between Australia and the Philippines as we commemorate 75 years of diplomatic ties between our two nations. I take this opportunity to thank Macarthur's Filipino community for the incredible work they do. They work in a whole range of industries—in particular, the healthcare industry, of which I'm a part. Macarthur is very proud of our Filipino connections. Many Macarthur residents, particularly around Rosemeadow, Ambarvale and surrounding suburbs, will be familiar with Rizal Park, but many may not know of its connections to the Philippines. Jose Rizal is an icon to Filipinos and also to Filipino Australians. Like me, he was a doctor; he was an ophthalmologist. He was a polymath; whatever he turned his hand to he was good at. He was considered to be the national hero of the Philippines—in the Tagalog language, the pambansang bayani. He was noteworthy for his role in bringing about the political reforms which ultimately led to Philippine independence. Unfortunately he lost his life in that struggle. He is rightly recognised in Macarthur through Rizal Park, and I have been to many functions there with our very vibrant Filipino community. This park also houses an iconic monument to this historic figure. In 2012, Macarthur was pleased to welcome the former president of the Philippines, His Excellency Benigno S Aquino III, who opened the monument during his tenure in Australia. More recently, we were pleased to host the Consul-General of the Philippines to commemorate Rizal Day.

As a mentioned earlier, Macarthur is home to a growing number of Filipino Australians. There are too many to mention them all, but many of them make an invaluable contribution to our society and I just want to single out a few of them—first of all, my very good friend and Campbelltown City Labor councillor Rey Manoto. Ray is a telecommunications engineer and he gave his expertise to our community in that role. Now he is a local icon of our community, a Campbelltown councillor, and has served the community well since his election in 2016. Secondly, I want to thank Dr Jimmy Lopez for his invaluable work in our community. Jimmy is a wonderful leader of our local Filipino community, and I want to thank him for his work, particularly with community organisations like the NARRA Co-op and Sedgwick Housing.

Filipino Australians make invaluable contributions to our community, particularly in health care. Among them are many of our nursing staff, some of our paediatricians and many of our GPs who work in our community providing health care and have done so for many years. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, they've provided invaluable service throughout our health care, including our hospitals, our general practices, our aged care and our disability care. I want to thank in particular Ms Lynn Santiago, who's been leading in one of our disability organisations to provide care for some of our most vulnerable.

In summary, our community is enriched by our Filipino Australians in Macarthur. I look forward to working with them. I thank them for the service they've given our community, particularly in health care, and I look forward to attending many more functions at the beautiful Rizal Park on top of the hill overlooking our Campbelltown community. I'm very proud to say that our Filipino Australians in Macarthur are my friends and have provided wonderful support to me throughout my time in political life.

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