Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 30 March this year, Australians all over the country sat down to watch the Socceroos play a friendly football match on television. It would have caught many Australians by surprise, however, when they saw the official title of our opponents, 'FYR Macedonia'. The initials stand for 'Former Yugoslav Republic', a reference to the nation's previous status as a part of the former Yugoslavia. Other countries that made up the former Yugoslavia—Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia—have all adopted names without reference to Yugoslavia. Macedonians, however, have not been able to drop the reference to Yugoslavia in their nation's official name. Their country's name has been a sore spot for Macedonian Australians since their country's official independence almost 2½ decades ago. Many countries, including the US, the UK and Canada, have moved on and now use Macedonians' preferred name in their bilateral exchanges with the nation.

Earlier this year, the member for Perth spoke in this place and said:

Common sense tells us that we should not continue to burden a country with a name that it hates.

One of the reasons our multiculturalism works is that modern Australia is a country of migrants who left disputes and cultural differences of the past in the countries that they came from. It makes no sense to refer to people by titles that they hate, and the Macedonian-Australian community has worked tirelessly to correct that in this country.

Australia is a place where people come to escape conflict, and we have cultivated a harmonious society by showing respect, empathy and tolerance towards others in our community. We should extend the same respect to Macedonians.