HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-04 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Bills

South Australian Multicultural Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 October 2020.)

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (12:00): I would like to make a contribution on the bill. In doing so, I would like to reflect on just how far we have come since the postwar migration boom here in Australia—in South Australia in particular—and look at the history of where we started, where we are now and part of the journey along the way.

We know that for the first 100-odd years of the colonies of Australia and then the Federation of Australia that we were predominantly a British colony, and even when we were a nation we still considered ourselves very much a part of Britain. As a matter of fact, Australian citizenship did not come into play until 1949.

It was obviously a big shift in the demographic make-up of Australia when the first migrants came in large numbers as part of the rebuilding program. 'Populate or perish' was the language used by the federal government at the time, and there were particular, very peculiar rules when it came to how people looked. There was a famous dictation test: if somebody had skin of a darker colour, they were asked to pass a dictation test, which could be in any European language. If they were Italians or Greeks, they would be given a dictation test in Lithuanian or in German, for example, and of course they were not going to pass that. It was a very cruel and ignorant way of dealing with the situation.

Having said that, we had a very successful migration program with the first wave of migrants, particularly from my heritage. My father came out in 1952. The Italians and the Greeks came out in equal numbers. Some would argue that there are more Italians than Greeks, and others say that there are more Greeks than Italians, but I would argue that that is because the Greeks are louder than the Italians, and the member for Enfield may agree with that.

What was good about that burst of migration was that it did wonders for the economy here, but it was also the beginning of our cultural diversity that we enjoy today. As a matter of fact, there was a bond formed between the Italians and the Greeks—always being rivals, of course, in their own countries—and there was a saying in Italian 'una faccia, una razza' which meant 'one face, one race' because they were in this together and they were here to benefit their families and for the opportunities that Australia had to offer.

There was a lot of pressure, certainly on my father, to anglicise, to forget about the history or culture you brought with you and to become English, to become Australian. At some stage, he was contemplating changing his name from Pisoni to Pearson, but my mother, who is not Italian and who was born in Australia of German and Austrian heritage, convinced him that it would not be a good idea. I am very pleased that on that occasion he took my mother's advice and we retained the family name.

That was the first wave and we saw the introduction of different ways of doing things. The parents of an old schoolmate of mine came from the Italian speaking part of Croatia, with a very strong work ethic, as all migrants have when they come to this country. He got a job as a painter at the old WRE at Salisbury. He had been there for just a few hours when, at morning smoko, his co-workers pulled him to one side and said, 'Hey, slow down! You're working too hard. You're working too fast.' He said, 'Why? This is how I work all the time.' That was the work ethic, the culture, that came to South Australia with new migrants.

There was quite a bit of resistance. If you ever see the movie They're a Weird Mob, which documents a 1960s Italian migrant's journey to Australia, as a light comedy, many of the scenes actually reflect what it was like at that time to be someone from a non-English-speaking background and some of the biases and discrimination they experienced. My father told me that as a young, single man here in Adelaide it was very hard to find a non-Italian girlfriend, for example, because of discrimination against new migrants.

Fortunately, that changed very quickly, as people's ignorance was removed because they worked alongside migrants, their children went to school with their children and, consequently, we saw this wave of postwar migrants become very much part of the South Australian community. They brought a lot to South Australia.

I remember the very first Italian deli in Salisbury, where I grew up, called Sam's deli. When you walked in you could smell the food. It was a lot different from walking into a supermarket where, in those days, most things were in cans, tins and bottles. In this particular deli you had prosciutto, mortadella and parmesan cheese filling the shop with aromas. Those who were unkind described it as the 'smelly deli' because of their ignorance, of course, and because they were not appreciative of what was being introduced to South Australia at the time. I am sure the children of those who used that language enjoy the Italian cuisine that was introduced by Sam's deli in Salisbury.

Then we saw the next wave of migrants come to South Australia. Our Governor, His Excellency Hieu Van Le, was one of the Vietnamese people who fled Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. If you ever have a chance to watch Migration Nation you will understand some of that history and why the Vietnamese community had so much respect for Malcolm Fraser. The program tells the story that, despite the fact that Gough Whitlam pulled Australian troops out of Vietnam, he refused to allow the Vietnamese refugees into Australia because he was concerned that, because they were escaping a Communist regime, they would not vote Labor when they arrived. That is documented in that SBS documentary.

It is quite extraordinary that a decision was made based on someone's perception as to how somebody would vote. We all know the Vietnamese community very quickly became part of the South Australian community and that they are freethinking people who vote on merit based on their experiences in Australia. Of course, it was Malcolm Fraser who took a big political risk at the time and said yes to the Vietnamese community.

I can remember, as a young teenager in the late 1970s, our car breaking down and my father calling the RAA from, in those days, the phone box. The RAA mechanic was there and, as he was working on the car, a Vietnamese family drove past and a tirade of racism came from the RAA mechanic. I have to say that even as a young person—I would have been 15 or 16 at the time—to hear that was quite shocking. But that was what that community had to deal with initially when they first came here, before they were appreciated for their contribution and for who they are.

We first saw that with the Greeks and Italians, then we saw it with the Vietnamese; different faces, different languages, different people coming to South Australia. We saw it again with the Afghani community in particular, with the Middle Eastern community coming to South Australia; we saw discrimination or fear because of ignorance of that community. We very quickly learnt that was unfounded.

Then we saw the African refugees, from South Sudan in particular, who are very prominent. Again, when they first arrived there was a lot of community resistance in some pockets of the community. It was not like it was in the fifties, not like it was in the seventies, but it was still there. Again, we are now seeing the tremendous contribution those families are making.

This is how South Australia has evolved from what has been a monocultural, white bread and corned beef culture to one of multiculturalism—and no-one has been asked to give up anything. People have brought things with them, every wave of migration has brought things with them, and one of the most valuable things the new migrant community brings to any community is their aspiration.

Aspiration is infectious. A number of years ago I went to visit Rob Knight out at Fremont high school, a very difficult high school with some very difficult social issues. It had a demographic of many dysfunctional and broken families, and that, of course, led to not a lot of aspiration for students in the schoolyard. However, what Rob Knight was telling me was that the best thing that ever happened to the school was the current—at that time—wave of African migrants coming to the school, because they were so aspirational.

The kids wanted to learn, the kids shared their enthusiasm with the second and third generation welfare families, and he was seeing improvements in their engagement with school. That was another positive from migration to South Australia.

Of course, we are now seeing the impact of the shutting of the borders here in South Australia because of coronavirus. We have seen a slowdown in migration throughout Australia, and that has affected South Australia's agricultural sector, in particular, where we rely heavily on migrants coming to the state on temporary visas. We are now finding out how hard it is to get Australians to do those jobs, yet we know that industry was working extremely well when it had access to migrant labour.

It is a particularly prominent problem in regional South Australia. In the hospitality industry, if you try to get a chef in regional South Australia I am told that only one in every four jobs advertised in regional South Australia are filled. This is a problem at a time when more and more South Australians are choosing to go to regional South Australia for their holidays.

I think it is over $3 billion that South Australians spend on overseas holidays in a typical year, but we are now seeing them holidaying in South Australia and we are seeing people from other states discovering what we have here to offer. Many of our hospitality sectors are suffering because that 'tap', if you like, of migrant labour is not there.

Our aim is to encourage many of those people who might come to South Australia on a temporary basis to choose to make it their home. We welcome them, we want them to be part of our community and we value the economic contribution that they make to South Australia. This bill modernises South Australia's values on multiculturalism and it reflects the modern values that South Australia has on multiculturalism.

I like the term 'interculturalism' being introduced for the first time because I think that is a much more accurate description of where we are today. We do not really have sectional communities: everybody is one community and they borrow from each other and share with each other. This is what has made South Australia the wonderful place it is to live and it is what has given us the lifestyle that we enjoy. Consequently, I am very pleased that this bill has been brought to the parliament and we are in a situation now where we can update a long overdue act of parliament.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: And, member for Unley, cars often did break down in the 1970s, didn't they? Member for Hammond.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:15): If we are talking about cars, we had a 1974 HQ with a 308. That was a beautiful wagon and we should never have sold it. It was very reliable.

I rise today to speak in regard to the South Australian Multicultural Bill. I want to acknowledge Norman Schueler who is here today and his work with multicultural communities right across South Australia and beyond. Without multiculturalism, this great state would not be what it is today.

In fact, apart from the first peoples who were here, the Aboriginal peoples, all of us have migrated from somewhere at one particular time or another. I have spoken in this place before about my family, the Pedericks, who came out from England in 1840—in the first 10 years of this state—as pioneers, settling here and making a life in farming, and boot making for a while, and then continuing on with farming and still having the farm to this day. That is the English side of my family.

Then there is the Scottish side, and I am not sure when they came out, with the Craigies and the Patersons coming out from a little place called Kirriemuir. Our farm is still called Kirriemuir because of that link and I am very proud of that. Just for general interest, Kirriemuir is the town that Bon Scott from ACDC grew up in. His contribution to music should be applauded. Certainly, we have all come from across the seas in one way or another. I note that under COVID conditions that has been pulled up seriously at this moment in time, but we will see things improve over time, especially with the rollout of the vaccines, to keep enriching our communities.

I note that in the agriculture sector, whether it is picking fruit or cultivating in horticulture, you could be in the Riverland, through my electorate picking fruit or you could be working around the areas of Parilla, Pinnaroo and Peebinga, in the irrigation area of the Mallee Wells district, a vibrant horticulture district. I commend the Pye family on everything they are doing up there and everything they have done for many years now. They came out from New Zealand and I think they have been in the area for well over 20 years, possibly 30 years. They found the good groundwater around Parilla and then decided to irrigate for potatoes, onions, carrots and other horticultural products to really help this state grow.

I acknowledge the $40 million they are investing in a new packing shed at Parilla. They will certainly need the support of people from overseas. They have been very reliant on backpackers, who are in very short supply at the moment, as are skilled migrants, regarding filling workplace shortages in South Australia and beyond because of the travel restrictions due to COVID.

It is certainly an area in horticulture where many skilled migrants and a lot of South African farmers are now working throughout the Mallee and other areas operating farms, whether they be irrigation properties on the River Murray or operating in the irrigation sector in groundwater. I welcome their involvement. I know a lot of their families have well and truly integrated into the Mallee. My boys have played footy against their boys. It is great to see that cultural diversity going right across my electorate because they make a great contribution.

The work is vital in the packing sheds or in the cultivation of crops and products. It is just a simple fact that for one reason or another we are totally reliant on migrants to help back up the local workforce and, hopefully, we are turning that around. We are giving $6,000 grants at the moment to entice people into the regions. It is a pity that that has to happen because there is so much work available that people can partake in to help support this great state and this nation.

Then there is the next level of value-adding industries in our community, and I look at what is happening in areas surrounding Murray Bridge. There is Costa mushrooms. The Schirripa family started up the mushroom farm, Adelaide Mushrooms. Once they moved out of Aldinga they came to Monarto to have bigger premises. That has recently been doubled by an investment by Costa, the new owners, with a $90 million injection.

I know for a fact that, apart from local workers who are working there, there are a range of migrants from different backgrounds who come from the surrounding area and also from some of the suburban areas, right up to Elizabeth and Salisbury. I commend them for working in that area. They have managed mushroom growing in a shed environment. I think it is operating on at least two shifts, and obviously the mushrooms are growing 24 hours a day in a controlled environment and everyone is doing magnificent work.

Then we come to the obvious one, the big meatworks, Thomas Foods. It has not been operating since 3 January 2018, but it is back on track after significant investment by both the federal and state governments. I applaud that investment in my area of $14 million on community roadworks. People keep praising me on the intersection work and how it was built off the Mannum Road to get that access, and the 2.2 kilometre inlet road to where the plant is about to be built so that we can have a beef plant going again at Murray Bridge and then build a sheep processing plant as well.

The simple fact is that we will need 2,000 staff and, for a range of reasons, I believe that many of those staff will have to come to us in some sort of migrant program. I know we used to have the 457 visas and a whole range of other numbers associated with visas. These people make a vital contribution. It is interesting to note that when Thomas Foods burnt down I think 1,500 people were there on that day and 500 were on a backpacker visa arrangement. Whether it is right or wrong, that is the way it works under a backpacker hiring scheme.

Sadly, the fire brought their employer at the time to a halt, but I must commend Thomas Foods for the work they did in relocating people and giving them the offer of going through to Tamworth in New South Wales or doing shifts at Lobethal, which was moved up to be a small stock abattoir, and they are processing sheep and small stock up there as we speak.

Some people took that opportunity and some people did not, but it was a real joy to work with all those people and all those communities. Their lives were severely disrupted. They are very polite people. I acknowledge the work that the Catholic church did in supporting a lot of these people and coming to see me and working through to get good outcomes.

I believe I have told this story in the house before. I think the worker was Filipino; forgive me if she was not. I saw her in the recovery centre a few days after the plant had burned down. She told me the story about what the fire meant for her. What was significant was the work ethic of these migrant communities, and it was really spelled out in the story this girl told me.

They are all evacuating the workroom because it is going up like nothing; it is all burning down before them. When the workers go on a shift or come off a shift, there is a room where they usually wash their boots. This girl promptly grabs the washer hose to wash her boots as she is leaving the building, which is going up in flames behind her. She is one of the last ones out. The supervisor just said, 'Get out! Get out!' That shows the real work commitment of people in that environment. As mad as it sounds, they just knew that that was what you did when you left the floor. The thing is, no-one was ever going back on that floor because it was going up in smoke. It did change a lot of people's lives forever.

Certainly, mainly around Thomas Foods, we have had a lot of migrants from a lot of places. A few years ago now, a large Afghan community came through. In fact, they have their own burial site at the Bremer Road Cemetery in Murray Bridge. They, along with all the different groups and cultures, made a significant contribution. I do not think there are many there now, but certainly they made a significant contribution.

We have had the Chinese and the Sudanese, and a lot of these people are still in the area. We have had Vietnamese, Cambodians and Filipinos, about 30 or 40 different cultures supporting our community and adding that extra value, building our economy and building the whole strength of the local community. It really does add to the vibrancy. We talk about not just the work that they do in these value-added industries like Thomas Foods but also what they add, because they bring their food and their lifestyle. We have many multicultural days when they display their dancing and other performances to remind us of their links to their former homes. In saying that, they are so happy to also call Australia their home now, and I go to many of their citizenship ceremonies.

Someone made a comment, which was quite a slur really. I went through Thomas Foods only about 2½ weeks before it burnt down, just by chance, and someone said to me, 'How many Australians did you see there?' I said, 'I wouldn't go down that path because I would suggest that out of those 1,500 workers there would have been at least 500 who were naturalised Australians.' What does it matter, as long as they are contributing to our society, contributing to the wealth of our society, which they are doing and will do.

It will be a problem into the future, finding homes for these workers when we need them, especially around Murray Bridge. At the moment, our biggest employer is not operating. It will need to be operating by the end of next year, when it is going to be finished. You cannot get a rental in Murray Bridge. This is part of the growth of people moving into regional areas.

We have a lot of other industry, whether it is light manufacturing with trailers or medium manufacturing with silos, semitrailers and a whole range of things. A lot of service companies are based in Murray Bridge. Obviously, we have more engineering and fire truck servicing and building. There is a huge range of opportunity. Staycrisp lettuce employs a lot of migrant labour as well. You will see their lettuces in many grocery stores across South Australia and Australia. It is the land of opportunity.

I will say that the whole electorate and the state would not function without the valued input of migrants. As I said, I am not fussed whether they are here as backpackers, whether they are here on a visa or whether they are making the change to become Australian citizens: they are well and truly welcome. I know we have a function coming up shortly in Murray Bridge to interact with these communities to keep making them welcome in my area.

In regard to the bill, there has been extensive consultation. It has been introduced to replace the South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission Acts to build stronger and more vibrant multicultural communities and also to modernise the language used to refer to multiculturalism and reforms the current multicultural commission. Part of the actions of the bill requires the development of a multicultural charter that will lay a foundation for development of future government policies and better services for our community. The bill will also reaffirm the importance of multiculturalism to South Australia and reassert our government's commitment to continue to serve and deliver for the contemporary South Australian multicultural community.

In 2019, our government conducted a legislative review of the South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission Act to help shape new legislation, which is why we are here today. The consultation phase of the review featured six community forums, an invitation-only stakeholder workshop, written submissions, an online forum and an online survey via YourSAy. Key themes from the legislative review consultation were:

the concept of multiculturalism should be modernised to reflect changes in thinking and practices;

SAMEAC's functions should be modernised;

the legislation should recognise Aboriginal South Australians as carriers of the original cultures in the state;

SAMEAC member appointments should be more transparent; and

the language in the SAMEAC Act should be contemporised.

The South Australian Multicultural Bill 2020 reflects much of the feedback received during this consultation process, and we are certainly very appreciative as the Marshall Liberal government of all those who were involved in the consultation period for their passion and interest in modernising our state's multicultural laws.

We are determined to pass this bill, as it will deliver better services and policies for our community. Our state has certainly been a leader in multicultural affairs legislation for many, many years and we have a proud and justified reputation in this area. It is vital that we continue to underpin policies, programs and activities with contemporary legislation.

In regard to the bill, its language has been refreshed and modernised, with the main changes being the removal of the term 'ethnic' and the introduction of the concept of interculturalism. In the consultations, the term 'ethnic' was widely acknowledged as being outdated and potentially divisive and therefore it was removed. To expand thinking beyond multiculturalism, the concept of interculturalism was incorporated in the legislation as being inclusive, contemporary and encouraging the exchange of ideas between communities.

The bill also requires that a South Australian multicultural charter be prepared and maintained, which will be informed by consultation, be expressed in inclusive and positive language, be aspirational in nature, lay a foundation for development of future government policies and create better outcomes for our whole community. The bill also refines the functions of the renamed multicultural commission, which will be well placed to lead a shift in our thinking about multiculturalism and interculturalism. It also modernises its operation to ensure transparency and consistency with the policy and guidelines for South Australian government boards and committees.

On the 40th anniversary of the SAMEAC Act, this bill is a timely reaffirmation of the importance of multiculturalism to South Australia. It reasserts the Marshall Liberal government's commitment to continue to promote and support the contemporary South Australian multicultural community. I want to commend the work that the Hon. Jing Lee in the other place does interacting with multicultural communities. I do not know of anyone else who is so committed to reaching out and working with multicultural communities right across the state, so I really do commend the lead that she takes in that sphere.

As I indicated earlier, not just for my electorate but right across the state, our state would be a far lesser place without all these cultures that come here to live or even visit for a while, as the backpackers do, and learn our beautiful ways and see our beautiful country. We would be a much lesser place. I commend this bill in bringing things forward in a more modern way. May multiculturalism and interculturalism be the lead into the future for working together with everyone in our communities across South Australia.

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (12:37): I rise today to make a contribution to this debate on the South Australian Multicultural Bill. It is one that I welcome and support and that follows our state's strong history and reinforces our strong framework to support a truly multicultural South Australian society.

The bill will replace the South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission Act and will underpin the development of a stronger and more vibrant multicultural community in our state. I note that the language in the bill has been modernised. Importantly, the bill will require the development of a multicultural charter that will underpin the development of future government policies and better services for our community. The development and delivery of the charter is something I look forward to. In particular, I look forward to the ways we may assist in delivering outcomes for my electorate specifically and of course for the state more widely.

From my perspective, the electorate of MacKillop is a great example of cultural diversity and a culturally diverse region. I welcome the modernisation and provisions facilitated through the bill for the benefits I hope they will bring to the multicultural community of my electorate. MacKillop has a rich and diverse multicultural community. Agriculture, agricultural processing and, more specifically, meat processing are key industries facing worker shortages that have been key drivers and have attracted the inward migration of people of many nationalities.

ABS figures for the MacKillop electorate illustrate the changing character of the regional population. Comparisons between the 2006, 2011 and 2016 censuses identify an increase in recent migrant population. This data illustrates that the proportion of residents born in Australia reduced from 86.4 per cent in 2006 to 82.3 per cent in 2016. Census data also illustrates a growth in the number of Afghani-born and Filipino-born resident communities in MacKillop. The Afghani community grew from 18 people in 2006 to 307 people in 2016. The Filipino community grew from 46 people in 2006 to 312 people in 2016. I expect these growth figures will have continued to grow since then.

In a further signal of change across my electorate, according to the 2016 census, with regard to Naracoorte's population, nearly 20 per cent nominated their country of birth as non-Australian, which highlights the extent of the multicultural community of the area. The importance of the multicultural workforce in MacKillop cannot be underestimated. I am aware that meat processor JBS, in Bordertown, has reported that migrants make up 70 per cent of their 450 strong workforce, while meat processor Teys, based in Naracoorte, has identified that around half of its workforce is comprised of workers from 29 different nationalities.

A vitally important service and support provided for our multicultural community has been the Australian Migrant Resource Centre, which has two branches in the MacKillop electorate, based in Naracoorte and Bordertown. The centre and its activities, which are funded by both the Marshall Liberal government and the commonwealth government, do an important job in providing settlement and community development services to new arrivals. The centre supports migrants and their wider families to enable these people to integrate and participate in the workforce.

I had the great pleasure of attending the opening of the new office facilities for the centre in Naracoorte on 20 February, which was attended by the Governor of South Australia, His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le AC, who was accompanied by Ms Le. The new facility will be of great benefit to our local community, and I anticipate it will support the small team that works from the centre to continue to provide a great service to our community. One of the aims is to provide long-lasting support to migrants and their wider families to enable these communities to integrate and participate in the workforce and in regional life.

The Migrant Resource Centre works closely with settling migrants and enables them to transition and integrate. They help with finding employment opportunities and help promote multiculturalism. I thank the AMRC for its hard work, especially our local offices. They rely heavily on volunteers. These community volunteers work with our migrant community to support them to learn English and to assist them to connect with our community. They support the positive contribution that members of our migrant community make in terms of the regeneration and economic growth of our regional towns.

Another great success story, which is a story of success in multicultural life in the MacKillop electorate, is the success of migrant and local restaurateur, Mr Hafeezullah Haidari. Hafeez has worked to create a very successful business, the restaurant Pearl Continental Australia. Hafeez has been recognised for his success, effort and endeavours, and was a 2018 SA Regional Showcase finalist and a finalist in the Australian Small Business Champion Awards of 2019.

On the weekend of 20 February, I was honoured to attend the opening of Hafeez's new restaurant facility on Smith Street in Naracoorte, the Pearl Continental Australia restaurant. The official opening of the new restaurant facility was conducted by His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le AC. Having the Governor attend the opening of the restaurant is an honour that has been afforded to Hafeez that is a testament to the vision, planning and hard work that he has invested into his business.

In relation to the bill, I again welcome its modernisation. It has been 40 years since the South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission Act commenced. I expect that this bill will build on good work that has been done and continues across the state with regard to our multicultural society. It has been prepared after an extensive community consultation process, and I believe it embodies our government's commitment to deliver effective outcomes for South Australia and the multicultural society.

Coming back to speak to and praise multiculturalism in South Australia, I note how important it is for migrants to come to settle in South Australia, particularly regional South Australia. We have a problem in our regions due to a lack of affordable housing. We have very low unemployment rates; in fact, Bordertown has nearly the lowest unemployment rate in regional Australia but certainly in South Australia due to its size. There are around 1,500 or 2,000 people there. One of the key roles of migrants, and the importance of migrants, is to be able to go to Bordertown and other towns around my region of MacKillop, and in regional South Australia, and fulfill these employment opportunities. They are needed in our regions.

This is actually a really important point: as Western society has become affluent, successful and well educated as we all know, our actual population growth declines. We do not aspire to breed or have children more than replacing mum and dad or maybe not at all, as we become more sophisticated and perhaps life goals change. This has not come recently: it has been ongoing for decades.

This really does highlight that, as a successful Western civilisation, Australia and the state of South Australia will not have huge population growth by our own means. This is why it is so important to attract great migrants who want to participate and have a huge amount of endeavour and determination to better themselves. You see this when migrant families come into our regions with their children and want to get as much of their family into Australia as possible once the ice has been broken there. They do everything they can to build up that family relationship, expertise, education, wealth and buy that family home and vehicle.

The member for Unley highlighted the huge amount of determination these migrants bring. He used the word 'infectious'. It almost leads the way as Australia perhaps becomes complacent with how lucky we are as a lucky country compared with many others around the world. We need to see the determination and perhaps where these people have come from. They can express it in many different ways by their sheer hard work, the way they pull together, the way they pull their own fellow citizens and countrymen together rather than worrying about families in general.

This is actually a role model for our society because, again, I would say that the more affluent we become, the more educated we become, the more isolated we become. We become almost small nuclei of our own 'unwellbeing' as you could call it. We can see that these new migrants come along with their different religions, different behaviours and lead the way that we perhaps have forgotten about.

I am fortunate enough to belong to a family that came to Australia in the 19th century, in about 1860. We came from Ireland. We were only in Ireland for about 300 years and were kicked out of Scotland and moved to Ireland. We are not even considered local to Ireland anymore. The point is that we have lost all connection with where we came from. My descendant who arrived in Australia in 1860 had only the clothes he was wearing. He went up to Burra to go mining and discovered that he was a brilliant water diviner and fencer. He became a developer of the arid lands and took up pastoral leases and obviously managed to build a sheep and wool empire that is still going today.

It has been along that journey where we have always recognised recent migrants in our business. We have always participated with any walks of life that wanted to be on the land. I know that in the shearing industry we are very reliant on New Zealanders. We call them Kiwis. They have absolutely propped up the shearing industry, given how hard the work is. I know I have already touched on our abattoirs and meat processors, and the Kiwis and Pacific Islanders from Vanuatu and Fiji are large participants in these industries.

One of the reasons for this is that they are really physically strong for physical type of work, like meat processing, the shearing and wool industry and also looking after livestock, which can have to be done in uncomfortable conditions, as sometimes it is very hot, dry, dusty work. It has been explained that in the shearing industry you need to be almost an elite athlete to be able to shear for eight hours and push down nearly 200 sheep out the porthole. It is almost like you are an elite athlete in that sort of work. This is the sort of work that migrants tend to find themselves doing or participating in because they have that huge amount of determination to better themselves and to get ahead.

They are well rewarded. The money in that industry is rewarding. It does afford them a good life and a good start. A positive with this is that that money goes on to buying a house, settling people in Australia and then going on to educate the next generation. The next generation go through their schooling and do very well, and they usually want to go on to university. Again, they show that same determination through university and into the professions of whatever is out there in Australia.

I note, though, that it is not always about staying local. Once they go through that first and second generation, they move on and aspire to bigger, better and greater things. So it leaves a vacuum there for another group of migrants to come through who we need to continually attract to the regions to keep the workforce going, because Australians generally do not want to do the physical hard work.

This is why we have opened the Naracoorte Migrant Resource Centre, which we opened on 20 February, which has another office in Bordertown. They are so important because there is no point attracting these migrants into our country, into our regional towns, and making life harder for them. They have already had it tough. They have already uprooted their lives from wherever they have come from and taken a leap of faith into Australia, usually on the back of adversity. This is not uncommon; it has happened for about 150 years for all those who have arrived in Australia. Nothing has changed there.

This is an act of encompassing migrants, looking after our migrant population, making sure that they are well resourced and can move ahead. Also, another thing that comes into it is being able to get on and be an Australian. We can help them with the language barriers, and perhaps with our bureaucracy and red tape, as you could call it, like getting a car licence. I know that there are people in Naracoorte who afford their car and time to teach the migrant population how to drive a car so that they can get to work. One of the pitfalls of being out in the regions is that we do not have public transport. They need wheels to be able to move around.

These and other things are what we notice about these migrant resource centres, along with the importance of volunteers. I know that we have volunteers in these centres who teach English. A lot of them do not have teaching qualifications, but some do. Some are retired teachers who come in to help teach the migrants. This is all to help with this transformation of where our migrants have come from. I made mention of the Afghanis, and I made mention of the Filipinos. English is foreign to them. English is a tough language. It is one of the toughest languages to learn of all the languages around the world.

Anything we can do to make the transition for this migrant population as welcoming and as easy as possible is a great thing for our regions. I have heard of a couple of great success stories, including one about an Afghani who came to the Naracoorte region in the 1980s, or perhaps a bit later in the 1990s. He has been here for 20-odd years and he has a workforce of nearly 700 behind him helping other Afghanis get into vineyard work to work contracts. He has done very well by helping out his fellow countrymen. Not only has he helped out his own countrypeople but he has helped our vineyard industry because we find it hard to get Australians out into the vineyards.

They start early, they work in big groups, they back each other up, they learn these skills and obviously they are of great benefit to the vigneron and the wine industry in Coonawarra, Padthaway, Wrattonbully and my other smaller areas like Mount Benson, Robe and perhaps even towards Mundulla. The vineyard industry welcomes these migrants. The vineyard workers tend to be a group of workers who are very resourceful. They share cars. A lot of these migrant workers are sharing houses and working in a way that gets them by and gets them started.

One of the things I want to highlight about the migrant situation is the lack of affordable housing in Naracoorte and Bordertown. Affordable housing needs to meet the needs of three groups. We need to meet the needs of the visa workers who come from overseas who are usually single. We need accommodation that meets their expectations that, most importantly, is affordable. We have small and large migrant families who are recent arrivals. They need affordable housing.

We also need affordable housing for the elderly, not aged care but elderly housing, where we have the large three to four or five bedroom house where an Australian family has brought up their family and the children have moved on, who want to downsize to something more affordable and easy to care for, which leaves those larger houses for other families to be able to purchase and move into.

This housing shortage is making it really hard not only for our business sector, because when they employ people they cannot house them anywhere, but for these new migrants coming in, who we also want to look after. One criterion to meet is their expectations on what the housing is good for. In other words, it does not need to be palatial. It needs to be very durable. Affordable housing needs to be built not by social housing but by the economics of investors.

It needs to have a good rate of return that allows both the migrant sector to move into, and also then also pay a rate of return so that investors will come back and reinvest in our regions. This current system at the moment is not working. Lack of affordable housing is an issue in our regional towns, particularly Bordertown and Naracoorte, but it also extends up to Tintinara, Coonalpyn and Keith. This affordable housing issue extends into Robe.

Hearing from the member for Mount Gambier, Mount Gambier also suffers a lack of affordable housing. So much a problem is it in Mount Gambier that our social housing has a bottleneck where there is a shortage of social housing because there is no transition from social housing into affordable housing. The shortage is causing this bottleneck. We should and hopefully will in the near future work out a process and plan, working with the federal, state and local governments, and address this affordable housing issue.

Coming back to migrants and the importance of migrants, an issue is that there is affordable housing for migrants to move into, be it single dwellings or family dwellings. In Australia, as we become more educated and wealthier and more affluent, our population growth is minimised. Sometimes these migrant families come in with families of 10. They need to have housing that meets the family of 10, if that is what it is. That is not an easy request, but that is the sort of flexibility our housing needs to have to make sure that our migrant families are looked after when they do arrive in Australia and that we do have the resources and the developments to attract them and look after them. I commend the bill, and I fully well support it.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Whetstone.

Sitting suspended from 12:58 to 14:00.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT