Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is keeping Australians safe and united in Australia's response to the coronavirus? And will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is supporting the Chinese Australian community, including in my electorate of Chisholm?

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question and also for her outstanding leadership in her electorate and, indeed, throughout the Australian Chinese community, particularly in the last couple of months. In times of adversity, Australians often shine, and I think we've absolutely seen that this year—first, in our response to the fires and, second, in relation to Australia's response to the pandemic. This absolutely includes the responses we've seen from our multicultural communities.

I have to say that I was absolutely blown away by the generosity of multicultural communities after the bushfires, in terms of how much money they raised, the food distribution and the like. But, equally, they have been incredible in their response to this pandemic, and I'd particularly like to make mention of the Australian Chinese community in this regard because, in some respects, they were on the front line of the pandemic very early on. They were the ones who first went into self-isolation. They were the ones who were returning home from family visits to China. As the Prime Minister himself has said in relation to that, it was through their care, their commitment and their patience that Australia was protected in that first wave, and I think that's absolutely right.

The government has gone to extraordinary efforts to indicate our support to our multicultural communities to communicate with them. We have translated all of the key fact sheets into 63 different languages and disseminated them broadly. We've had over 2,000 engagements with individual multicultural leaders in the last two months alone. I've regularly communicated through the multicultural media, both individually and collectively. In each one of those engagements, our message has been the same. Our message has been that we are there to support them; to communicate to them what support is available individually and what support is available for their businesses; to communicate to them about what the social-distancing requirements are; to thank them for the extraordinary efforts in getting control of this pandemic; and, sadly, though, in recent times, to also point out and reassure them that racism has no place in this country and that we're on their side, if there are any instances of racism, and that they should rightly report it and call it out, as we have been doing.

We live in the greatest multicultural country in the world bar none, and when the chips are down in this country all Australians chip in and we have absolutely seen that this year from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, all religions and all ethnicities. I just so thank the multicultural committees for the effort. They've been such a big part of getting to this stage of the pandemic and they will be an equally important part in the recovery.