Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today's disappointing debate on border security is a timely reminder of one of the important consequences of outsourcing our immigration policy to people smugglers. A key benefit of the coalition government's tough border security policy is that it enables an orderly humanitarian intake. To paraphrase former Prime Minister John Howard, this enables Australia to determine who comes to our country and the circumstances in which they arrive.

In Western Australia, one of the things I'm most particularly proud of is to be involved and interested in, and to advocate for, a number of communities of what I call 'new' Australians who have benefited from our orderly humanitarian intake. These are communities who have come to Australia, who are living in our communities and who have fled persecution, forced labour and abuse, and who have often waited their turn, in hardship, in refugee camps across Asia. These are communities who do not have the financial capacity to pay the people smugglers and who do not wish to enter our country in a manner that offends the majority of the Australian public—people they want to join with to be their fellow Australian citizens.

This weekend in Perth I am delighted to be able to join the Perth Chin community to celebrate the Chin National Day, the 71st anniversary of Chin national identity and independence. This is a day of celebration for approximately 1.5 million Chin people who reside in the mountainous regions across Burma, India and Bangladesh. WA is the home of Australia's second-largest Chin community and I'm looking forward again to participating in their national day of celebrations, which not only celebrates their rich history but also solemnly remembers those who are not so lucky as to have found a new home in a country as welcoming as Australia.

In December just gone I had the pleasure of hosting a group of Australian Chin community leaders from Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, with international guests from the Chin Human Rights Organisation, here in our national parliament and, indeed, now their national parliament. The delegation served to remind me and the many parliamentarians that they met of how lucky we are as Australians, and that we should be constantly reminded that that luckiness is not shared by all people and that this great nation does give safe haven and a place of prosperity and security to many new Australians like the Chin community.

I will forever remember the brief story that was shared with me on their last evening by my friend, Boi Lin. He told his story with tears in his eyes, of fighting as a young guerrilla in the rainforests of Chin State in remote Burma, looking up at a plane flying overhead and wondering if anyone in the world would ever care for them or even knew about their struggle and the pain and suffering that their community had experienced and was experiencing. Decades later, Boi Lin couldn't believe that he was sitting in our national parliament and had been to see our national leader, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, to talk about the Chin community in Australia, the Chin community in their homeland and the Chin community that is spread throughout the world. It was truly humbling to see the effect on the Chin community and their leaders, and to understand more intimately what it meant for them to have access to authority and to have someone who listened to them and cared for their struggles and their plight; someone who was prepared to defend their interests in Australia and abroad.

In addition to attending Chin National Day celebrations like the one I will attend in Perth on the weekend, late last year, on 16 December, I also had the pleasure of attending the 11th national day of Bhutan—again, a celebration in Perth's northern suburbs. The Bhutan National Day, officially 17 December, pays respect and gratitude to the Bhutanese kings, their forefathers and past leaders who helped to build and shape today's modern Bhutan. It commemorates the day in 1907 when Gongsar Wangchuck was crowned the first king of a united Bhutan, and launched an era of peace and prosperity after a long period of civil war.

I would like to thank the Bhutanese community for inviting me to their celebration, and to my friend, Pima, for the very warm generosity.

Senate adjourned at 19:50