Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Chuc mung nam moi! Xin nian kuai le! Kung hei fat choy! Happy New Year to the Vietnamese and Chinese community in Melbourne and all over Australia. It has been a delight to spend time celebrating the Lunar New Year and the coming Year of the Rat with the Melbourne community over the last month. I've read that the Year of the Rat, which begins the zodiac cycle, represents the beginning of a new day. It has been an exceptional privilege to celebrate this moment with our diverse, welcoming community in Melbourne.

On Sunday 19 January, I was joined by other local representatives and Greens councillors Amanda Stone and James Searle at the Victoria Street Lunar Festival for the new year. This event, now in its 20th year, is a wonderful chance for our community to gather together to celebrate Vietnamese culture.

My daughters, as always, loved the chance to share in one of their favourite foods, noodle soup, pho, and admire the majestic dragons and displays of culture. Victoria Street was its bustling brilliant self, showing off the vibrancy of our electorate to the visitors from across the city and the country. Congratulations to the event organisers, the Victoria Street Business Association, for their hard work in organising such an important community event and this very exciting anniversary year.

It was also a real pleasure to join the Australian Vietnamese Women's Association celebration for Tet a few weeks ago. Over a number of hours I was treated to a magnificent display of traditional Vietnamese dancing, including a lion dance to the tune of 'Rivers of Babylon', which was especially enjoyable and memorable.

I also had the opportunity for another quick tour of their office. Where there were once empty desks when I visited a number of years ago, there's now a friendly staff member in every corner of the office, contributing to the excellent work that the association does. Celebrations like the one I attended are just one way that the Australian Vietnamese Women's Association helps the Australian Vietnamese community in my electorate stay connected to their culture and also help Vietnamese refugees and migrants find their way in Australia with resources, training and support. As our government continues to strip a lot of support and services for recent migrants and refugees, this work is more important than ever.

I'm glad that I've been able to support the Australian Vietnamese Women's Association through the provision of the Stronger Communities Program grants to help update and revitalise their incredible office space in Richmond, in the heart of the Vietnamese community within Melbourne. I'm very proud that organisations like the Australian Vietnamese Women's Association exist in my electorate, living the values every day that I know Melbourne values deeply, especially caring for others, inclusivity and diversity.

Melbourne is one of the most diverse electorates in the country. Multiculturalism is at the beating heart of every corner of the electorate. From the strong presence of First Nations communities in Fitzroy to Victoria Street or Lygon Street, Melbourne is a brilliantly diverse city. It's what makes us one of the most liveable cities in the world. But, at this time of celebrating the incredible contribution that immigrant and migrant communities have made to Melbourne and Australia, we cannot forget the important work that we still need to do to tackle racism and xenophobia in this country. Just this month I've been deeply concerned to hear of reports of increasing xenophobia targeting members of the Australian-Asian community in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. I echo the words of the Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy, who's urging against xenophobia during this time. I thank Brendan Murphy for speaking out and for his crucial work in keeping Australians safe and healthy.

I also want to thank many thousands of Australian health workers across the country who are playing a key role in protecting the wellbeing of Australians. However, it's deeply saddening to hear of young people nervous about going to school or of businesses struggling as customers desert them. I heard a disturbing report the other day of a young boy in the schoolyard who was of Chinese-Australian decent and who was being chased around the schoolyard by others children who want to detain him because they said he had the virus. I'm calling on the government to take the lead. I'm calling on the government to step up and make sure that, at this time when we are trying to protect the health and wellbeing of everyone in this country, it does not allow for discrimination and xenophobia to come through the door. We cannot allow the medical measures that we have taken to be used as cover for racist and xenophobic attacks against people from Chinese-Australian backgrounds or from Asian-Australian backgrounds more broadly. We must do more to stamp out racism in our community and ensure the Australian-Asian community feels safe, welcome and included.