Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week was Harmony Week. Also last week we marked the 75th anniversary of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In Australia, Harmony Week is the celebration that recognises our diversity and brings together Australians from all different backgrounds. It's a week about inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone.

My electorate of Chisholm is one of the most diverse in the country. In Chisholm, residents claim ancestry from 231 different places and speak 152 different languages. We are a thriving example of multicultural Australia. Of course we're very privileged to share this country with the world's oldest continuous culture. First Nations people have cared for country and built communities for over 60,000 years, and the story of this country begins with them. There are many stories and cultures that are part of the evolving Australia, and I feel enormously privileged to represent such a vibrant electorate full of community minded people who share their cultures with their neighbours and are indeed part of the evolving Australian story.

Earlier this year and much to my delight I attended many lunar new year events, including the very large celebration in Box Hill organised by the Asian Business Association of Whitehorse. It was amazing and so thrilling to be able to welcome the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese; and the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles, to the event. This was one of many spectacular celebrations I attended. It is a really important fixture on the local calendar in our community of Chisholm. It is a significant sign of how multicultural we are as a nation that events like lunar new year are so embraced in suburbs like the ones I represent in Melbourne. I've previously acknowledged and congratulated all of the various groups in my electorate who organised and invited me to lunar new year events, who made such beautiful food and who engaged in such excellent cultural performances. I would like to extend that acknowledgement and those congratulations once again now: thank you and well done for such incredible celebratory events. I look forward to celebrating the year of the dragon with everybody in 2024.

In my electorate we recently celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of colour, love and spring. I had the great pleasure of attending the Notting Hill Neighbourhood House for their celebration. I received a beautiful henna tattoo and enjoyed such delicious food that had been prepared by volunteers. I also attended the Rang Barse Festival of Colours at Monash University, organised by Bhakti Tarang. Again, it was a wonderful, colourful event, full of music, performances, joy and celebration. I congratulate everyone involved in those events for their exceptional organising efforts and for attracting such a wonderful crowd from our community.

My electorate is home to the Victorian Sikh Association. It's a group I really enjoy working with and look forward to doing more work with in the future.

I am also really looking forward to the upcoming celebrations for Greek Easter, a really important time for our Greek Orthodox community. We have a significant Greek community in the Greek Orthodox churches and community groups in both Oakleigh and Box Hill as well as right across the electorate, and I am looking forward to spending time with that community in a few weeks as they mark such a special and sombre time of year.

I'm very privileged to be able to attend many different cultural groups in my electorate, including seniors groups. From the Italian seniors group to the Tamil and Greek seniors groups, I am always made to feel welcome. I know how important language and culture is to the people who have come to Australia post war and who have built lives for themselves and their families here. It is a real privilege to be able to share in this with so many people across my electorate.

Like so many people in this place, I have my own connection to recent migration, with my Italian grandparents being just some of the 7.5 million people who have migrated to Australia since 1945. Again, for so many people in this place and in our communities right across the country, the dual cultural identities we hold are really important to us. I know my Italian and Australian cultural identities inform who I am, and I'm very lucky to be in a country like Australia where multiculturalism is so embraced.

It is impossible, though, to talk about multiculturalism without talking about the great man Gough Whitlam. The Whitlam government was responsible for the introduction of the official policy of multiculturalism, which was the policy that encouraged the notion that cultural differences within society should be accepted and celebrated. The first expressions of this policy were in the introduction of new translation services for migrants and the incorporation of multiculturalism into a range of government services, including education and health. It was the Whitlam government that enacted the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. That's a really significant piece of legislation, and it is something that Labor will always protect—unlike those opposite, who have, in recent memory, tried to undermine key provisions and protections contained in that act. It was under the Whitlam government that the final pieces of the White Australia policy were at last dismantled. It was a discriminatory policy that we should all be proud was recognised to have no place in a country like Australia.

It's really significant that last week, on 21 March, we marked the 75th anniversary of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The reason that this day is held on 21 March is that, on that day in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid laws in Sharpeville, South Africa. The United Nations proclaimed that day in 1966. It really was a call to the international community to commit their efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination, and we must continue those efforts.

Of course, it's excellent that during Harmony Week we do mark the very positive contributions of migrant communities and reflect on the fact that diversity is our greatest strength as a nation. But it is also crucial that we commit ourselves to doing more to be a truly inclusive nation that ensures everyone is respected and has a meaningful place, regardless of where they come from. Our government is very mindful of the fact that we need to take real action to meet our goals of ensuring real equality. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke, has just today announced changes we will be making to ensure migrant workers are treated fairly in Australia by introducing the Protecting Worker Entitlements Bill, which clarifies that migrant workers are entitled, at all times, to the same workplace protections as everyone else under the Fair Work Act.

This is an area of reform very dear to my heart. In my career before entering this place, I spent time helping to establish and oversee the Migrant Workers Centre in Melbourne. I continue to be dedicated to working with vibrant, diverse communities to ensure that they are able to be safe, be respected, be treated fairly and have real access to justice. I'm proud to be part of a government that is so committed to these aims too. I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Migrant Information Centre in my electorate of Chisholm with Minister Giles. The work that the Migrant Information Centre does in supporting community, connecting people with services and being just such wonderful advocates in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne is so commendable. I'll always be a strong champion for their local work and I very much look forward to visiting again soon.

People come to Australia for all sorts of reasons, and I am always so thrilled to attend citizenship ceremonies at both Monash Council and Whitehorse City Council in my electorate. The only thing that ever keeps me away is a sitting week and the obligation to be here in Canberra where I can support the community in other ways, without physically being there. Harmony Week offers us an opportunity to celebrate our communities, reflect on how far we've come in building a multicultural, inclusive country and to recommit ourselves to always strive to do better, to work hard and to ensure we protect and advance equality and respect for everyone in Australia.

See this speech in context