Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will! It was such an obvious but significant dissemination of the health department's information, with the potential to change and indeed save lives. This, surely, is the point of multicultural policy—to ensure that everyone has full access to information services and that everyone, regardless of language or culture, can fully participate in our society. This is the multiculturalism that I and so many others have fought for and will continue to fight for, despite the naysayers.

I believe that all migrants should be given every opportunity to learn English, no doubt; they have to. But like my constituent and good friend the late Stefan Romaniw, I believe in the importance of supporting the retention of the teaching of community languages. Stefan, sadly, passed away last year. He will be greatly missed by the community languages sector whose advocacy he led, but he'll also missed by the local Ukrainian community.

The retention of language is not only important to our diaspora communities; building multilingual capacity is a valuable resource and asset for Australia, especially so in our bilateral relations and interactions with the world and more so with our Asia-Pacific region. It was a significant achievement when the then education minister, Julia Gillard, developed the national school curriculum, which included community languages. The member for Adelaide and I carried into this place a petition of some 22,105 signatures supporting the inclusion of the Modern Greek language on the national school curriculum as a language of cultural, community, historical and economic importance to Australia and the Australian people.

The Greek community is often held up as an example of successful integration. It is very much that. Its success is a result of multicultural policies and its own cultural and social resilience. My generation was encouraged to retain culture, language, faith and traditions while simultaneously proudly owning and bringing this inheritance along with us in our integration process. I hated going to Greek school. But I'm grateful that I was forced to by my parents, because today I'm bilingual and that is an asset. I can tell you one more thing: multiculturalism helped my generation—and I say this to a lot of schoolkids—deal with the double life we were living in our formative years, because it was a double life.

Successful integration doesn't happen by chance. Multiculturalism has and will continue to enable the integration of migrants and assist their journey to becoming Australians. It will enable our newer, emerging communities who are coming here from our region with the same aspirations and desires to hold on to language and culture, and who are making and will make their contribution to the great Australian story, for they are the next wave of nation-builders.

We saw this last week, at the SBS television's celebration of Lunar New Year here in parliament. This event was hosted by SBS's friendship group—again, convened by the member for Monash, me and the member for Fowler—and it saw the member for Monash and me dress in the traditional garments of a Korean groom, which was quite fun. The acknowledgement of country was conducted in Korean—a poignant example of contemporary Australian multiculturalism in action. SBS is a vital piece of our multicultural infrastructure. It's in-language focus is critical to our nation, to our social inclusion and to our national security.

My passionate belief in multiculturalism is why, in this place, I have always sought to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. I have served on this committee over six or so parliamentary terms, both as chair and deputy chair. I'm especially proud of the committee's report Inquiry into migration and multiculturalism in Australia from March 2013. This inquiry looked at the economic, social and cultural impacts of migration on Australia. It was, as I have said, an audit into migration and multiculturalism, following a decade of criticism and fear-mongering. Other reports followed, including No one teaches you to become an Australian, and the most recent, Migration,pathway to nation building. These reports made many recommendations, but they also affirmed that, in general, Australians support multiculturalism and accept that we are a multicultural nation and that they also support migration as a nation-building enterprise.

Another area of public policy that's been consistently close to my heart throughout my time here is health. I started off specifically taking an interest in support for people with cancer, and, even more specifically, breast cancer. My very first private member's business in this place was in 2002. It was about mammary prostheses. It called on this House to note the recommendations of the February 1995 report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Community Affairs to amend the Medicare rebate schedule to include provision of mammary prostheses. The report noted at that time, some 23 years ago, that women diagnosed with breast cancer who underwent mastectomies were forced to endure not only the emotional and physical stress of the disease itself but also the financial burden of breast prostheses. Many had to use crude, birdseed-filled prostheses, like the one my mother did, or they had to make do with reused prostheses from women who had died. This motion came about after I accepted a meeting with this amazing woman named Roz Hill, who herself had had breast cancer and a mastectomy. She led the Canberra based organisation Caring for You, and, together with the Melbourne based Breast Cancer Action Group, advocated for the Medicare rebate.

When I spoke to my private member's motion, which was seconded at the time by my colleague the former member for Charlton the late Kelly Hoare, who had mentored me in my first term, I used a prop. As a former teacher, this seemed the best way to illustrate my point to the House. I demonstrated what a more sophisticated version of a breast prosthesis looked like and why it should be available to all women regardless of their financial status through the Medicare rebate. Its appearance startled and bemused the deputy speaker, who at the time was the dry witted former member for Scullin and later Speaker of the House, Harry Jenkins. The mammary prosthesis was a version of the real thing, and it caused Harry to pause for a moment—a very long moment. I eventually got the message that I should put it down.

It also caused a flurry in the media across the country the next day. Everyone was outraged as the headlines screamed 'Birdseed in the bra' and 'Dead women's breast prostheses resold'. As a result of the public outrage, the then shadow minister for health Stephen Smith, although unable to implement the recommendations of the 1995 report to amend the Medicare schedule, did commit to provide a nationally funded dedicated breast prostheses program to public hospitals to ensure that funding went directly to the provision and availability of these prostheses. This was a commitment we implemented when we came to government in 2007. It proved to me that advocates could make a difference and influence policy in this place and in this room.

I went on to become good friends with Roz Hill, and she encouraged me to keep going over the years when I had doubts about staying. Roz was a two-time breast cancer survivor but sadly passed in 2015, almost 40 years after her first diagnosis. I spent many terms up here involved in raising awareness about breast cancer through the parliamentary friends of the breast cancer networks. My own mother died of it at 53 years of age. Her experience, and mine of losing her at a young age, devastated our family, and I know, as many of us do, the impact of such diseases on the individual, the family, the community and, of course, on the public resources.

Breast cancer support became the first of many other vital access areas of health that I have taken an active interest in. I believe strongly that everyone regardless of socioeconomic status or English-language capacity should have access to information and preventative screening programs that are designed for early detection and saving lives. Raising awareness on public health issues has been critical to my work. People and communities cannot flourish without good health, and, from an economic point of view, not only does screening programs, awareness raising and early detection programs save lives but also they're cost effective.

I've also co-chaired the heart and stroke friendship group for many years, and I believe that friendship groups have a very important role to play in this place. I, like most of you, am on scores of them, and I particularly want to thank another wonderful woman, Tanya Hall from Hearts 4 Heart, for her advocacy and tenacity. My involvement in these groups has always been about how I can assist and better inform my local communities.

I also want to acknowledge the colleagues that I worked with to achieve the passing of the presumptive legislation that provides protection for firefighters. With the support of the Victorian United Firefighters Union secretary, Peter Marshall, I bypassed unwittingly my own caucus's internal processes, teamed up with a member from Melbourne and the member for Monash—there's a theme here—and secured tri-partisan support for this crucial bill.

Over 23 years, I have witnessed many changes in both of my workplaces—the main one being my electorate and the second one being here in this building. When I first came up here, there were far fewer female MPs. This place was very different. We sat longer hours. It was not uncommon to sit well into the early hours of the morning. I remember one time I was listed to speak at around 3 am on a particular bill and I had to stay awake only to discover that the bill was finally guillotined just before I was due to speak. This happened often in those days. I know it happens in the Senate more regularly, but this is the House of Representatives, where government's formed.

When I was first elected, my children were aged six and eight. Children were not accommodated for in these halls and members of parliament were expected to function in spite of rather than alongside being parents. With more women here, and both women and men of different ages and life stages, the culture has changed, and it's changed for the better. Sitting hours have become a lot more family friendly, and we actually have a childcare centre on site—something, believe it or not, that was vehemently rejected when this House was first planned and built.

These changes have not only benefited women; they have meant that male colleagues have been more comfortable talking about their children, bringing them to Canberra and involving them in their working lives. I recall an incident, and there were many of them, in 1993—this is going back a while—when I was here as a staffer to former senator Kim Carr. He had his eight-month-old baby, Ruth, who he had to hand over to an attendant before entering the Senate for a division because 'strangers' were not allowed on the floor of the chamber. Of course, now it's much more common for members to bring their babies into the chamber. That makes a real difference to a lot of the women here but also a lot of the men. Admittedly, it took some years for these changes to evolve, and I'm sure they never would have happened without more women being elected.

I'm also pleased to note the increasing number of women from diverse cultural backgrounds being elected to parliament. It is very important for our migrant communities, both established and emerging, to see people like them in positions of representation, power and influence. Not only does it give them the courage and confidence to aspire to their own goals in public or community life; it helps to ensure that cultural nuance is more likely to become embedded in the making of public policy. In my inaugural speech I said:

… effective representation involves empowering the community you serve so that it can help itself. It will be my job and proud duty to share in this work.

I also said that it was especially important for recently arrived migrants, and, in particular, migrant women, to take up leadership roles where they can and make a real impact on decision-making for the benefit of our community. I'm pleased to say that there are many such women in my electorate today. They may not necessarily become members of parliament, but they are already leaders in my community. I have always found that approaching women in my communities is the most efficient and effective way of learning about the issues that matter most to people—to help spread awareness of, and access to, services for the people who need them the most. It's usually the women who understand the needs of families, children and the elderly. They are the ones who get the jobs done.

I became an MP because I was always interested in being involved—or, as I often explained to school students, because I don't mind my own business. It's been gratifying, rewarding and sustaining to have met and worked with so many others who also don't mind their own business—many of them for no financial reward. I've met so many amazing people over the years, but I would like to highlight just a few of the extraordinary women from my electorate that I've had a privilege to work with.

I'll start with Nayana Bandari. She leads the Oorja Foundation, a community group she helped established to help the growing Indian community. Thank you, Nayana, for the wonderful work you do and for giving me the opportunity to be part of bringing to Australia the film Geeta, an award-winning documentary about an acid attack survivor Geeta Mahor and her daughter, Neetu, and their fight against gender based violence. We showed this film in the Parliament House theatre. `I want to thank its director and producer, Emma Macey-Storch, for her amazing work in helping to make arrangements for Neetu to give evidence by phone from India to the Human Rights Subcommittee inquiry into violence against women and girls.

Ravinder Kaur is from the Sahara organisation, which is another community based organisation. Ravinder is fearless, kind and passionate about helping the elderly in the community navigate their way into a new life in Australia.

Maria Liistro approached me many years ago to help her persuade a hospital to give her 13-year-old son, Sammy-Joe, life-saving treatment for his rare condition, trichothiodystrophy. Maria fought for him and established the Friends of Sammy-Joe Foundation in 2006 to raise awareness and to support other families in similar situations. Sammy-Joe was not expected to live beyond 25 years of age, but today he is 36 years old—largely due to his mother's sheer and unwavering determination.

Agnes Nsofwa established the Australian sickle cell advocacy group. I'm proud to have been the inaugural patron of this very important organisation; it was a real highlight to launch ASCA at the Royal Children's Hospital in 2018. Even more so, Agnes lobbied and succeeded in getting newborn screening for sickle cell disease added to the newborn bloodspot screening program, and I want to thank this government for actually implementing it. It's made a huge difference to the community.

Wendy Dyckhoff has played a central role in raising awareness and advocating for the forgotten Australians. Wendy overcame the impact of childhood trauma and abuse to educate herself and fight for the rights of all caregivers. The apology that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered to the forgotten Australians was a milestone in Wendy's life, and it encouraged her not only to not stop campaigning but to continue to campaign to improve the lives of many others.

Dorette Sayegh, who is no longer with us, made such an impression on me when I attended her 80th birthday party in 2014. Dorette was the first woman to qualify as a dentist in her hometown of Basra in Iraq. There are many such qualified medical practitioners and other professionals from Iraq and Syria living in my electorate. Like Dorette, they have made me acutely aware of the enormous talents, skills and qualifications within our diverse communities, especially the refugee communities, which we should respect, support, harness and recognise. We should find a way, at least, to allow them to participate.

Gina Dougall is the dynamic, inspiring CEO of Banksia Gardens, a wonderful community organisation in Broadmeadows. Gina and I have been working together in our shared community for about the same amount of time, and, thanks to her leadership and vision, Banksia Gardens has hosted many of the most significant community gatherings that I've been proud to be involved in.

Aynur Simsirel is a teacher, education adviser and, now, Ilim College's new chief executive officer. I've worked with Aynur over the years but more recently following October 7. She has been instrumental in guiding the school's response to the consequences of October 7. In her caring and compassionate manner, she set up support groups for the children who lost family members in Gaza and, later, those who came to Australia from Gaza. They have settled in Calwell, and my local community has embraced them with love and support.

Mental ill health is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and, along with addiction, the sheer weight of its impact is wreaking havoc in the lives of our constituents, especially young people. The mental health of our community is as vital as its physical health. As it currently stands, the mental health system is overstretched and therefore limited in its capacity to respond at all times. This is especially critical in the non-English-speaking communities, where attitudes to mental illness and addiction are influenced by cultural nuances such as shame, lack of information about getting help and an inability to navigate the system. We need to support and partner with the mental health professionals, the mental health advocates and the grassroots community groups who are well-placed to be part of a more holistic approach. One such example is Mental Health Foundation Australia, a grassroots organisation focused on providing a referral service for multicultural communities. They do amazing work, and they're effective, but they don't receive any government funding. I'm joining their board, and I hope to use my knowledge about how this place works to convince government that the foundation should be supported. If community is prepared to step up, government must be prepared to step up also. We shouldn't stick to the usual funding script alone. I want to give a big shout-out to team GROW Clinical Psychology, a psychology clinic in Roxburgh Park using their professional expertise and cultural and linguistic know-how to help our local Turkish-speaking community. The practice recently received one of the inaugural Stronger Medicare Awards, recognising its exceptional service.

Despite the changes in demographics over the years, Calwell remains a predominantly blue-collar constituency. The loss of the car industry—and, particularly, for us, the closure of Ford—continues to have a huge impact on the local economy and employment opportunities. A lot of local people have lost jobs through the decline of manufacturing, once a mainstay of Melbourne's northern suburbs. But I'm proud to say that this government has not given up on Australian manufacturing, and we have seen new industries grow, including in food production and medical and advanced manufacturing. When I was first elected, the Kangan TAFE boasted a state-of-the-art aviation school. Sadly, that is now gone, but Kangan, with the support of the state government, has built a new health and community centre of excellence, opening this Thursday, which the minister and I visited recently. Maybe we can get leave to go and share some birthday cake with them. That's always been a problem, you know. The leave business has always been a problem.

While we have faced change that is not always welcome in my community, we are resilient and resourceful, and we are always looking to the future. The electorate has changed in shape and complexion. Where Craigieburn was once the outer fringe of Calwell, it is now the geographic centre, and the northern growth corridor stretches ever further north. The member for McEwen and I have always tussled and had fights about Craigieburn, because it keeps bouncing between us during the redistributions. I've got all of it back now.

The electorate now reflects the new sources of migration to Australia, including from the subcontinent—the countries of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, in addition to, as I've already mentioned, the large refugee communities from Iraq and Syria. Faith is central to many people's lives in Calwell. Our faith communities now include the rapidly growing Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist communities. I've enjoyed my longstanding relationships with a number of temples, and particularly with the Tibetan Buddhist Society, and one of their very important leaders, the venerable Anna Goldstein, who I worked with many, many years ago in the office of Joan Kirner, when she was the education minister. Life has a strange way of coming around.

It is ironic, therefore, that I, who vehemently and publicly opposed Australia's involvement in the Iraq War in my first term here, would end representing in this place the biggest constituency of refugees from the region, who are Chaldean Christians and Assyrians. The churches play a central role in their lives. For many years, I have worked closely with Father Maher and others. I even helped bring the then governor-general, Sir Peter Cosgrove, to attend mass at the Chaldean Church of our Lady of the Plants. The community was thrilled to have the Governor-General in their church. It was a powerful sign of connecting to this country's highest office, and it made them feel that they were truly included in Australian society.

I want to add my praise for the caring principal of the Good Samaritan Primary School in Roxburgh Park, Paul Sedunary, and his wonderful staff. I thank them especially for the work they do with the young refugee children. Seventy per cent of their students are refugees from Iraq and Syria, and, recently, from Gaza. This school and its staff, including the beautiful Ban, who is their liaison officer, go above and beyond the call of duty. Of course, there are many incredible public schools and non-government schools throughout my electorate who continue to do a wonderful job of teaching and supporting our young people. Visiting as many of them as I have been able to has been one of the highlights of my parliamentary career and has allowed me to continue to practice my teaching skills—and I have come to the conclusion that if I were to be back into the classroom now, I'd be in all sorts of trouble. I'm completely out of date.

In closing, I want to begin by thanking Mary Elizabeth Calwell for her friendship. She has remained a constant and loyal friend, ensuring my connection to Labor history, Labor values and the legacy of her father, the man who my electorate is named after, remains strong and well-informed. Arthur Calwell was a visionary operating within the context of his time. As such, he can only be described as bold, courageous and with a firm commitment to acting in Australia's national interests.

To my staff—and there have been so many over the years; too many to mention, so I'll try and do that another time—I just want to say thank you to all of you, current and past. Some of you have gone onto do exceptional things, and I'm very proud of you. I do want to make a special mention to the longest-serving members of my team. Helen Patsikatheodorou, otherwise known in our community as the 'pink mayor', on account of her having been Mayor of the City of Hume twice during her diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer. In our office, she is known as: 'If anyone can, Helen can,' because of her unyielding assistance to our community and her determination to solve problems, and she does. Joanne Dougall was with me from the beginning, and after a break she returned to the office. It's only fitting that we retire together. I met Carole Fabian when she interviewed me for that electorate officer's job in 1987. We often joke that I went on to become the boss, and I am the boss now. I hope I'm a good boss. Also Basem Abdo, who is now the Labor candidate for Calwell. I look forward to watching Basem take our community forward into the future. He is young and smart, and I have no doubt he will make an excellent contribution both in here and in the electorate.

Finally, to my family—there they are—guess who's back! My husband, Michalis; my daughter, Stella; and my son, Stavros. They were six and eight when they were first here, which gives you an idea of just how long I've been here. It hasn't been easy for you guys, but it's been very hard for me. The 24/7 job I stepped up for meant I had to find ways of accommodating its demands and expectations with those of my family and personal life. I have missed so much while I have been up here in all those years.

I tried to manage it by ensuring that I always knew where my kids were and that I always took their calls, no matter where I was or who I was with—there are some stories, and I won't name that prime minister! I took helicopter parenting to new levels. Today it would be drones, and I reckon they would have been more useful. I solved problems ranging from finding socks to what to have for dinner and everything else in between, and I did all that over the phone. Zoom and video weren't available in those early years, and, now that they are, no-one at home really has the time to sit and zoom with me while I'm up here. I don't think they want to, either! My life revolved around the parliamentary sitting calendar, and so did my family's. They were sometimes resentful, but we remained close and intact along the way. I want to thank you for the many times you have said to me: 'It's okay, Mum. Don't worry. We're good.'

I've known so many people in this building. So many wonderful people make up the sum of who we are in this place. In my opinion, ours is one of the best parliaments in the world and the most architecturally elegant, and no-one should say anything other than that. I've enjoyed being here. It has been a privilege to have sat in this chamber. It truly is a measure of our success as a modern multicultural democratic nation that we are given opportunities to participate and to be heard no matter who we are, where we come from, our colour, our creed or whatever. But it has been an even greater privilege to have been given the opportunity to serve my local community of Calwell, and I want to thank them for eight consecutive terms of support. I have grown to know them so well, and I'm very proud of them.

Thank you all. We are a great country and we are a successful country, but we shouldn't take our lucky country for granted. It's our responsibility to protect it, regardless of our difference. To you, Mr Speaker, I hope I've been of some use over the years as a mentor in the early days before you rose to fame. You have been a really good Speaker, so I want to leave with this: geia sas, sas efcharisto kai kali synechia. Loosely translated: see you later—I think you all know what 'geia sas' means—thank you, and may you go forward successfully. Thank you.

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