COVID-19 India

Mr SZAKACS (Cheltenham) (15:43): I rise to speak briefly about the extraordinary human tragedy that has been unfolding in India due to this COVID-19 pandemic. With India and its people, we know we share so much in common. Australia shares the great aspirations of democracy with the great nation of India, and India, the largest democracy on this planet, this year celebrates its 73^rd anniversary of independence.

Thanks to our great and most amazing story of migration and multiculturalism in this state, we are lucky enough to call 40,000 South Australians of Indian birth local residents. We know that between 2011 and 2016 the greatest proportion of people arriving in South Australia from overseas were from India. It is with this great connection, but also deep understanding and empathy, which I know all of us in this place have with members of the Indian community, that we reflect on the tragedy currently unfolding in India.

To better understand this tragedy and to hear directly from members of the community, the Labor Opposition recently engaged with a significant number of leaders of the diverse Indian community here in South Australia. Along with the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Ramsay, and including Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Labor's shadow minister for foreign affairs, we convened a meeting of leaders of this community to hear from them directly about the most recent and acute tragedy unfolding in India and in the course of the entire last 14 months and how that has been affecting uniquely members of the local Indian community.

They spoke very clearly, articulately and passionately about things that mattered to them. They told us they felt isolated and disconnected, with deep concerns for members of their community. They spoke of the immense hardship international students had faced. Many of those students were stuck in Australia, effectively unable to leave and stranded without the ability to work or to receive government assistance.

We know that members of the Indian community and other multicultural communities stepped up during this time to look after their own communities. They delivered enormous amounts of food and financial relief to members of not only their own community but others within our multicultural communities.

At this round table, members of the local Indian community also spoke about the significant effect the separation of carers, most often grandparents stuck in India, had had on their families. They spoke about how that has impacted their capacity to fully participate in the economy, to fully care for their children and to participate in South Australia's diverse life in a way that they would like to.

They also spoke about feelings of being abandoned by the federal government. The decision to limit and impede travel from India to Australia was a difficult one. On balance and in the face of a significant pandemic emergency, it was a decision that was widely supported by the community. However, the decision to criminalise the return of an Australian citizen was met with confusion, dismay and anger. It was considered unnecessary, over-reaching and politically opportunistic, announced at a time when the Prime Minister was under immense pressure over his stalled, delayed and botched national quarantine response and vaccine rollout.

Despite all this, and in spite of all this perhaps, the Indian community spoke most passionately about their desire to help back home in India. They spoke about the need and the want to assist financially, to work with members of the South Australian community to fundraise and to help back home. I am very pleased to congratulate them on their coordinated efforts on the weekend just gone in the holding of their first Garba Night, an event coordinated by 33 separate Indian organisations to raise money for their communities back home.

In the brief time that is left, I want to very clearly put on the record my dismay at the treatment of Priya, Nades, Tharnicaa and Kobika, Sri Lankan asylum seekers stuck in purgatory on Christmas Island. I spoke about the human tragedy unfolding in India, but we have a human tragedy unfolding before our eyes. My pleas to the Prime Minister are very clear: stop the madness, stop the cruelty and bring them home.