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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-08-28 Daily Xml
Contents
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Motions

Peregrine Corporation

The Hon. R.B. MARTIN (22:04): I move:

That this council—

1. Recognises that 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the Peregrine Corporation;

2. Acknowledges the significant contribution the Peregrine Corporation and the Shahin family have made to South Australia; and

3. Commends the Peregrine Corporation and the Shahin family for being true South Australian success stories.

The year 2024 marks 40 years since a family of Palestinian refugees left Lebanon, arrived in Adelaide and bought a single petrol station in Woodville Park. If the story ended there, it would already be a compelling tale, one that speaks of great resilience and a strong determination to forge a path through grim adversity to a better future. In fact, it is just one chapter in the remarkable human story behind a family who have become South Australian icons, the Shahins: the late Fathi and his wife, Salwa; their children, Khalil, Samir, Yasser and Amal; and their many grandchildren and extended family members. Most South Australians will know them as the family who have built the Peregrine Corporation business empire.

The family's journey has been a truly extraordinary one. To understand where the greatest meaning lies in their story, one must appreciate its beginning. The year 1948 saw the Shahin family, like a great many Palestinians, lose their homes and their way of life. Their village, Qabba'a, was barraged with mortars and depopulated. Its residents were forced to flee with what little they could carry.

Fathi, then aged 10, crossed into Lebanon on foot with his family. They settled in Beirut and Fathi ultimately gained accounting qualifications and worked for the United Nations for 27 years as an accountant and an auditor. This in itself was a tremendous achievement, because for Palestinian refugees Lebanon offers very limited opportunity.

It remains the case today, as it was then, that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians in Lebanon cannot gain Lebanese citizenship, which would entitle them to government services such as health and education. Palestinians remain prohibited from owning property, as they were then, and from entering a broad range of professions, including medicine and law. An overwhelming majority of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are informally employed in low-wage jobs. A UN report in October 2022 stated that 93 per cent of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are living in poverty.

One must be able to imagine living under systemic marginalisation; a lack of civic, social and economic opportunity; and a lack of belonging and freedom in order to appreciate the Shahin family's single-minded determination to succeed and to thrive. Arriving here in Adelaide was the new beginning that they sought, but Fathi could not find work. With their savings diminishing, he applied for dozens of jobs. Nobody would employ him, he later said, because he was too old. We must also acknowledge that racial prejudice, too, played a significant role in his experience. Fathi said, in an interview in 1994:

I had to do something for my family. I bought that service station, and we had to make sure that it worked. The only way we understand that a business is successful is by hard work. For us, we grew up with a culture where if you don't work, you starve.

So of course the family began working to not only to make their business succeed but to expand. Within four years of buying that first service station, the Shahins had two other service stations and two gift shops—and the business continued to grow and grow.

Prior to announcing OTR's sale to Viva Energy last year, the Peregrine Corporation owned about 200 petrol and convenience stores across South Australia, along with the Bend Motorsport Park, Peregrine Property, Reliable Petroleum and more.

The family story is an extraordinary one in many different ways. It is also a deeply South Australian story, because the Shahins are, like many of us, parochial people in that they are very passionate about, and highly committed to, South Australia as their home and as the home of their business. Our state gave the Shahin family the opportunities they sought and the true sense of belonging that every human being deserves. In return, the family give back to South Australia and not just by employing thousands of people. The family engages in philanthropic work through the Shahin Charity Trust across a range of endeavours without ever seeking public recognition for doing so.

A visible example of their community mindedness, though, can be found in The Bend Motorsport Park. Now known by another name, it will always be The Bend to me. Developed and funded primarily by the Peregrine Corporation, The Bend is an award-winning world-class motorsport facility featuring, in fact, the second longest permanent circuit in the world. It hosts everything from significant international events to local people who just want to give motor racing a crack.

The extensive complex is a linchpin in the family's efforts to make South Australia the pre-eminent destination for motorsport in the nation. They are bringing their own passion for motorsport and their ambitions for South Australia to a significant strategy of investment to build a unique economic and cultural sector for the state. These endeavours are not motivated by profit but by the desire to create something meaningful and long-lasting for our state.

The family follows other diverse passions as well, and I think one of the most poetic chapters in their long and remarkable journey is one of the most recent. Khalil Shahin, along with his own family, has this year purchased Aileron Station, a property around 130 kilometres north of Alice Springs that is over one million acres in size, along with 5,000 head of cattle and a very large farm nearby to grow feed.

As Khalil is an agricultural engineer by training, this acquisition represents the realisation of a long-held dream. The striking poignancy of the Shahin family in only one generation going from being legally unable to own land to owning a mind-bendingly vast amount of land cannot be lost on anyone. In all the rich history of our state and among the generations of people who have found their place here I love that it is a family of refugees from Palestine who have written one of the great South Australian success stories.

I am honoured to have the opportunity to put on record the extraordinary tale of this one-of-a-kind South Australian family. I commend the Shahins and the Peregrine Corporation not only on 40 years of service but on the incredible resilience and determination that have led them to achieve it.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. L.A. Henderson.

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