Page 540 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
recent times has sort of refined the issue and has come up with what I think is a very good phrase. Accidentally, almost, I think it is a phrase reflected by our Ethnic Schools Association. Zubrzycki states that Australia is a case of many cultures, one Australia, and I think that is very, very true. That is something that is laudable, desirable and something we should celebrate.
It is interesting that the ACT Ethnic Schools Association has a phrase, which I think is “Many languages, one voice”, and that is very, very true too, because the ethnic schools teach, to whoever wants to go along—I had the pleasure of going along to a Polish one once in 1998—the culture and the language that the old country migrants come from and they speak, though, with one voice. It is a very similar message to what Zubrzycki was talking about there. I think that is a very, very true and accurate statement of where we are at in Australia and particularly where we are at in the ACT.
Mr Pratt has most eloquently talked about how Australian society should emulate the ACT model and he has highlighted the great benefit from the efforts of the Canberra Islamic societies—and there are many—in terms of what they are doing in our community. That is true, I think, of all groups in the ACT and that is something that Australia could emulate, because it is worrying when we see things like the Cronulla riots, the retaliating tactics taken by certain groups on that night and the damage and the violence against people caused by both of those incidents. That is something we strive to stop in Australia.
It is because of our own unique culture, which has been moulded over centuries really—but moulded probably even more quickly over the last two centuries, and even more quickly over the last half-century as a result of so many groups coming into Australia—that we have the Australia that we have today. It is a place people want to come to and, despite what some might say, we have a proud record, too, in terms of migration. There are countries in the world that do not allow people from other lands to go and live there. Despite some of the criticism that might have been made in terms of even our refugee policy, Australia takes many more refugees than many, many other countries in the world. I saw some statistics—admittedly a couple of years old—which indicated that per head of population we are about second in terms of the numbers we take. That is something that we can be proud of and something the federal government can indeed be proud of.
There are so many people who want to come here and start a new life, for obvious reasons. They are always going to keep their culture. They are going to pass that culture down to their children. That is just human nature and it is desirable; it is laudable. But they are also going to bring their own attributes to our Australian culture and they are going to meld into our Australian culture as so many groups have before them. It is a unique culture. There are some countries which are not dissimilar—probably mainly the countries of the British commonwealth, such as New Zealand, and to an extent perhaps Canada and maybe several others—but it is a culture that is the envy of many, many people in the world. Mr Pratt’s amendment and the third paragraph of Ms MacDonald’s motion really encapsulate that.
There have been a few problems in the past. Ms MacDonald is having a bit of a swipe at the federal government. I have praised Arthur Calwell; I think he did a wonderful job. But I think few people today would probably agree with his comment, “Two
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .