House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-06-04 Daily Xml

Contents

Motions

Campania Sports and Social Club

Debate resumed.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light—Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (12:57): I would also like to congratulate the Campania Club on their 40th birthday. The region is the region where I was born, which comprises the provinces Benevento, Napoli, Caserta, Salerno and Avellino.

The importance of clubs like the Campania Club, amongst other clubs in South Australia, is that they provide an important opportunity for friendship for new arrivals in Australia. Often I think we forget what a challenge and how difficult it is for the early migrants in this country, particularly, as an example, my own parents. The first time my mum left her village was to come to Australia with her family not knowing English.

Clubs like this play a very important role in terms of helping people, not so much hold onto their heritage, but to bring forward their heritage to the new country, get acquainted with the language, and importantly provide an opportunity to transition to the new communities. They provide people, in this case people from the Campania Club, with an opportunity to, if you like, go into the wider world of Australia with friends and family. The importance of clubs like this is that they help people to celebrate those things which are important to their culture. In this case, like many others, family, church and festivals are probably things which are very important to people from Campania.

One thing I would like to mention is that a lot of people from Campania probably also hold dual citizenship in this country. I mention that because it is very important. People use dual citizenship not just to acknowledge their place of birth but also because they are quite proud Australian citizens. I think any government who wishes to tinker with citizenship rules should be very careful about that because the essence of citizenship is that you are equal before the law, and once you start tampering with that you start to go into dangerous territory. I would caution our federal government and federal opposition very carefully about what laws they do change in terms of citizenship. I think that these clubs are very important. They help many people to become successful in this country and I commend the hard work and the pioneers of this club, and many others in this state.

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (12:59): I thank all honourable members for their contributions today. I once again take the opportunity to thank the Campania Club and the volunteers of the club, and I wish it all the very best for its 40th year celebrations.

Motion carried.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.