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

On Thursday last week, I welcomed into my electorate the shadow minister for immigration, the member for Blair. We had a meeting with a large number of my constituents and members of the local Chaldeans, an Assyrian Christian community.

I would like to begin by thinking    Father Maher Gurgesfor allowing the meeting to take place in St George Chaldean Centre in Cooper Street, Campbellfield. This was an opportunity for my community to raise issues and some were about the new 12,000 intake of refugees. There is a little angst around the inconsistency and uncertainty of the processing period. The minister may be aware of this as well, but it is something that I am lobbied about extensively in my electorate, given that I have a very large Iraqi Chaldean Christian community.

On a very positive note, we have already started receiving families from Syria in the new intake. I want to congratulate my community, especially the churches of Our Lady Guardian of Plants, St Yacoub Syrian Orthodox Church, St Mary's Ancient Church of the East and St George Chaldean Centre for the incredible amount of voluntary work that they are doing in embracing the refugees and helping them. This is a wonderful community. We are getting people who are highly educated and who will make a good contribution to Australia.