Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak tonight on a proposal that is of great importance to my local area. It is of great importance because it has created the unintended consequence of division within the community. It threatens to undo decades of work intended to break down the barriers between the many ethnic groups in the Fairfield LGA. The proposal is a development application before Fairfield City Council to build a memorial on the corner of Elizabeth Drive and Smithfield Road at Bonnyrigg on council land. I have read some of the public’s response online in our local press, and my office has received many negative phone calls about this 4.5-metre or 17-foot memorial. I have made these concerns known to the Mayor of Fairfield and the member for Cabramatta, Nick Lalich, and the member for Smithfield, Ninos Khoshaba, on behalf of the people I represent.

The memorial will be dedicated to the victims of the Assyrian genocide with the park named ‘The Garden of Ninevah’ to reflect a strong affinity with the Assyrian people. It has, without doubt, noble intentions, but there are great difficulties in supporting memorials on public land which are dedicated to one cultural or ethnic group, no matter how worthy or noble the cause. Let me say from the outset that I have great admiration and respect for the Assyrian people. Their contribution to Australian life and in particular to life in south-western Sydney is already written into the annals of our country’s relatively short history The Assyrian community has supported me over many years and I have supported the Assyrian community. This will not change.

However, our community is made up of many ethnic groups, many nationalities and many cultures. It would be fair to say that there is hardly a nation not represented within the area. It is simply a reflection of our nation which has been built through migration. From our earliest days as a British colony when the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove pushing aside the Aboriginal inhabitants, to the early settlers, to the Chinese who worked in our goldfields, through to the waves of migration which followed the world wars, migration became the building block of our nation. Many came simply for a better life but many of our migrants have fled wars. Many have fled political and religious persecution to find a safe haven in Australia, a place of freedom and democracy and a place to raise a family without the ever-present fears of their homelands. They came from every continent—from Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and from the Middle East; from Britain, Ireland, Italy and Greece; from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; from Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine; from Rwanda and Sierra Leone; from the nations of the former Yugoslavia; from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan and from many other nations that I will not have time to name tonight. Everyone will recognise the names and everyone will remember their histories, for they are all very similar.

No-one has a monopoly on war or persecution, no-one has a monopoly on genocide but, sadly, we have seen it repeated time and again around the world and it is this fact which prevents me from supporting this proposal in its current form. While the Assyrian people should rightly be proud of their heritage this proposal threatens to open a Pandora’s box. Each proposal henceforth must be treated in the same manner. Is council prepared to offer public land for every proposed memorial? How will the council respond, say, if the Cambodian community sought to build a similar memorial? Would they not be worthy of the same consideration?

Fairfield City Council should be taking the lead on this proposal. Council should elect to take charge of this memorial. Council should be seeking input from all the groups who make up our great community, including the Assyrian community. Rather than a memorial to one group, perhaps council should create a memorial to represent the contribution of all migrants in our community, a memorial to those who escaped for a new life in a faraway land—a land called Australia. Now that would be a proposal we would all support in my local community, which I am so honoured and privileged to represent in this parliament.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 10 pm, the debate is interrupted.