Migrant Contributions

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (16:40): In speaking in support of this motion to adjourn today, I would like to bring to the attention the house an event I attended on Sunday night. From that event I would like to also make some comments about some ill-informed comments made by a federal minister recently. I normally do keep away from federal issues, but in this case I will make an exception because the comments were quite offensive. What disappoints me is that other members, and particularly members on the other side, have not raised this, and by their silence they endorse those comments, and I will explain why.

On Sunday night, I was invited to attend the Bangladeshi in the north social occasion. This occasion is organised by the Bangladeshi community in the north of Adelaide and they came together as a community to have fun and socialise, as new communities to this country do. A number of local MPs were invited, as was the local Mayor of the City of Playford, Glenn Docherty, and he attended. They had some speakers from the Bangladeshi community on the night, and they told their stories. There were stories of hardship, stories of sacrifice and stories of success.

There were stories of people who came to this country who were quite well qualified in their own country, and often their professional qualifications were not recognised here in the first instance. They came here and they worked as cleaners, they worked on factory assembly lines and they worked in a lot of areas right across our community. They worked hard and a lot of them also studied while they worked. They worked to raise their families and they studied to better themselves and also as opportunities for their community.

What they did do from day one was make a contribution to this nation. From day one when they arrived, they sought employment. They worked, they paid their taxes and they made a contribution to this nation. They also worked hard to study, either to reskill themselves, upskill themselves or to obtain additional qualifications to complement the qualifications they got in their own country. These speeches resonated with me and I could relate to them because I come from a migrant family. It is the story of migration. It is the story of our Governor. It is the story of this nation.

That brings me to another story, a story by a minister of the Crown in our federal parliament who made the most inappropriate and callous comments recently when he was talking about migrants to this country. Whatever way migrants come to this country, the reality is that they come here and they are migrants, whatever route or journey they have taken. Minister Dutton, the Minister for Immigration, said this—and I think it is worth putting on the record, because the fact that these comments have been left unrebuked by the Prime Minister, the foreign minister or any state Liberal member in this place—

Mr TARZIA: Point of order: the member is making a personal reflection on members of this house and he has no idea whether or not comments have been made, so he is making accusations.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will listen carefully. I am sorry, I was distracted.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: It is a matter of record—or non-record—that the comments were not made in this place. Whether or not the member has made them anywhere else, I am not making any comment on. I am saying that in this chamber, in this place, he remains unrebuked—and the member for Hartley knows that. So, if I could continue without interruption that would be ideal, Deputy Speaker.

In this case, he was talking about refugees, and he was doing what we refer to as 'dog whistling'. It is the most disgraceful example of dog whistling because not only is he attacking the refugees but he is attacking every migrant who has come to this country because their stories are complementary. I think it is worth putting it on the record because it is a disgraceful moment in the history of this nation, something one would have thought would have gone in 1901—but, no, Mr Dutton still holds those views. This is how he refers to the migrants:

…they won't be numerate or literate in their own language let alone English. These people would be taking Australian jobs, there's no question about that.

Then he goes on to say (not only is he offensive, he is inconsistent): 

…for many of them that would be unemployed, they would languish in unemployment queues and on Medicare, and the rest of it. So there would be a huge cost. There's no sense in sugar coating that, that's the scenario.

What he is saying is that when migrants come to this nation they cannot make a contribution. He has appealed to the basest form of racism in this country. Fortunately, we have very little of that in this country. Most Australians are fair-minded people, and my experience as a migrant has been that an overwhelming majority of people are fair and give a fair go. In fact, I would say that one of the key characteristics of this nation, as a value that separates us from other Western societies, is that we go for the underdog and we give people a fair go. What Mr Dutton was saying was that they are not entitled to a fair go.

His comments were insulting, demeaning and an attack on the dignity of all people, whether or not they are migrants to this country. It is an attack on migrants irrespective of how they arrive. It is an attack on migrants from Italy, it is an attack on migrants from Greece, Yugoslavia, Europe and any other country, and I will give examples. Migrants have worked very hard in this country, and they have raised families and made an enormous contribution to the wellbeing of this country. This is an attack on the most disadvantaged in our society; in fact, these are the people who are disadvantaged in their own communities before they come to Australia.

These are the poor, and women, who have not had an opportunity for an education in their own birth country. My mother was one of those. My mother was a person who never had an opportunity go to school, nor did my aunty did not have the opportunity to go to school or a lot of the women we see in the fields at Virginia, who are from Vietnam and who work very hard, have an opportunity to go to school, nor did the poor have an opportunity go to school because of their generation.

So not only are they disadvantaged when they arrive here but this minister has decided to kick them while they were down. That is what he did; he kicked them while they were down. It is disgraceful, the most disgraceful comment I have heard in decades. The fact is that no minister rebuked him. The Prime Minister did not rebuke him, and no Liberal member of this parliament in this chamber has rebuked him. That is a reflection on them, and shame on them. As I said on Sunday night, if there is one reason migrants in this country should not vote Liberal this is that one reason; there are many others.

These disgraceful comments are not only offensive but they are incorrect in fact. On the one hand, he said that migrants will not get work, and then he said they will take the work from local people. He cannot have it both ways. I go back to my example. My mother, from her generation, who is now a blessed 80 years old, did not have an opportunity go to school. That was not uncommon in southern Italy at the time, but to suggest that my mother made no contribution to this nation is offensive in the extreme. She worked hard; from the day my mum and dad arrived in this country they worked very hard. My mum worked in a rose nursery and she often did piecemeal work at home, and my dad worked a number of jobs.

That is not only my parents, it is a common migrant story. I am sure the member for Hartley has family members whose story is very similar to this, and other members whose parents have come from overseas would have a very similar story, as would the Deputy Speaker herself. My mother worked very hard, my parents worked very hard, and they were able to send us to school—primary school, high school, university. The next generation of migrants has done very well as a result of the hard work of their families, their parents.

This is also true of what I saw on Sunday night with the Bangladeshi community. There are scientists, doctors, lawyers and pharmacists, a range of people in those professions who are now making an enormous contribution in this country. In fact, only a few weeks ago in this chamber, the Minister for Multicultural Affairs talked about how successful migrants are in business and how they are disproportionately represented in business and creating wealth in this country.

That the foreign minister tried to put the best spin on minister Dutton's highly offensive comments and the lack of a public rebuke from the Prime Minister shows why Malcolm Turnbull is not fit to lead this nation after 2 July. His comments are also not consistent with Australian values and the importance of giving people a fair go.

These comments are not only offensive and inaccurate but they are also designed to undermine social cohesion and what we have successfully achieved in this country through multicultural policies. For decades, governments of both persuasions have worked really hard through multicultural policies to gain what is good for this country and also gain from what other people who have come to this country bring with them. These are base and pathetic comments.

I make these comments today because through my own family experience I think Mr Dutton's comments are an attack on not only my 80-year-old mother but every other woman and person from overseas who did not have the opportunity to have an education but who travelled without the language. Often, many had never left their villages or certainly had never left their country before coming here. They were a new set of pioneers to this country; they came here and worked very hard. For this minister to make such comments is unacceptable.

He should have been called to resign there and then. The foreign minister should not have tried to defend what he said. The Prime Minister should not have just hidden and said nothing. This is also a minister, you may recall, whose seat was redistributed a couple of elections ago. He sought to swiftly go to another seat because he did not want to defend his own seat. This is a person who is clearly not overworked or hard at work himself alleging that people who come to this country are not hardworking. With those comments, I think that every person in this chamber would find his comments offensive and at every opportunity rebuke them, irrespective of which side of the house they are on.