Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Chilean and Latin American communities have a long history in Australia. This first known Chilean to arrive in Australia was a former president of Chile, General Ramon Freire, who came in 1838 as a political exile. Soon after, Australia's first Labor Prime Minister, Chris Watson, was born, in 1867 in Valparaiso. Later, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam would assist Chilean immigrants who were fleeing the Pinochet regime to settle in Australia. Many of the Chileans who came to Melbourne settled in my electorate in Melbourne's west.

As a representative of the hundreds of Australian Chileans and Latin Americans in Melbourne's west, I am shocked by the violence unfolding in Chile. Respect for human rights embodied in the concerns shared by the Chilean and Latin American community is fundamental to Australian values. The Chilean community in Australia has known what it is like to live with a government that uses the military against its own people, detains its own people and uses violence against them. They teach us that we should never take these democratic values, our democratic freedoms, for granted. As we do at home, we need to protect the public's right to protest in Chile and reject the anti-democratic practices of the military. As we have throughout history, we need to speak out and stand in solidarity with those fighting in the dangerous situation in Chile and call for an end to violence.

Australian multiculturalism works best when we learn from each other. One of the things that I treasure the most from representing so many constituents who have fled repression to settle in Australia is their value for our democratic freedoms.