James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to rise in this chamber to talk about the importance of multiculturalism and the multicultural communities of my electorate. I appreciate the similar contributions that most members have made about their electorates and about the pleasure it is, and the honour, of serving in this place and doing the work we get to in our communities. I think everyone says, to a tee—and indeed I say—that engaging with our multicultural communities is definitely the most enjoyable part of being a local member of parliament. In fact, I think the greatest honour of being a member of parliament is to attend citizenship ceremonies and be there when people take that oath or affirmation. They have chosen to make their future in our country and, whilst I'm proud to have been born in Australia, it's a particular honour when someone chooses this country to make their future in. We're so lucky that, as a nation, we have such a very rich tapestry of people who have come from all across the planet to make their future in Australia.

On most of the globally available statistics we're close to the nation with the highest number of people born overseas, which is something to be particularly proud of. I think it's just over 30 per cent of Australians who were born overseas, and we know that in the recent census more than half of Australians either themselves were, or had at least one parent, born overseas. This is a problem for some of us seeking election to this place, of course—as we know, under section 42—but happily it's a bit clearer for those political aspirants. Nonetheless, it's something to be greatly proud of. Also, when we look at some of the other nations with a high proportion of migrants, Australia is certainly at the top when it comes to the great, rich tapestry and blend of backgrounds of people that have come here.

We know about the history of migration to this nation from the time of European settlement. Initially, for the first century or more, migrants were largely from the British Isles—sometimes quite involuntarily. Many of us may have forebears that didn't necessarily choose to come to Australia in the early part of the post-European colonial period. Of course, there was that disgraceful period of time when we had a very racist migration policy in this nation, known as the White Australia policy, that put certain caveats and requirements on people being able to come to this country. Thankfully, that was dismantled. I particularly pay tribute to former prime minster Harold Holt, who made some of the most significant elements of change to the migration system to ensure that we removed the appalling racism that was present in the migration policies of the Commonwealth government.

We know, of course, that the post-Second World War period saw a large number of Mediterranean and southern European migration. I'm very proud to represent the largest Italian community of any electorate in the country in my electorate of Sturt. A little over 27,000 people in the last census identified their Italian ancestry in my electorate of Sturt, and I'm very proud that my electorate has the largest Italian community of any electorate in the country. That Italian community is very vibrant, and there are still first-generation Italians that came here in that very difficult post-Second World War period, which brought so many important traditions, particularly rooted in their faith, in their Catholicism. In my community, we have many important and significant religious festas, celebrations of the feasts of saints, that are so very significantly linked to the communities from which that Italian migration came. There are some communities in my electorate where there are more people who are descended from migrants that came from particular villages than there are people in the villages in Italy where they came from. It goes to show how significant that wave of migration was.

The second-largest community has those of Chinese ancestry. Then it's those of Indian ancestry, and then Greek—I could go on. In the last week or eight days, we've had two significant local cultural celebrations in my electorate. We had the Norwood Greek cultural festival just on Saturday night, two days ago. The member for Adelaide, who spoke earlier on this motion, was there with a number of other state parliamentary colleagues. It was a great opportunity to celebrate Greek culture and the Greek contribution in my electorate of Sturt. And, last weekend, like in so many other communities across the country, there were the celebrations of Lunar New Year.

As a member of parliament, it is a great honour to be at these events across our various multicultural communities, to join with those communities to celebrate their culture and to thank them for bringing their culture and those traditions to this country. I truly believe—and I'm sure no member would disagree—that Australia is the greatest multicultural country on earth. We want to see our multicultural communities continue to grow and thrive, to celebrate their history and their ancestry and to embrace the opportunities that Australia provides them while also celebrating the past that they bring to enrich our nation in doing so.

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