Page 769 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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Madam Assistant Speaker, unlike many other Australian cities, Canberra’s multicultural growth began in earnest relatively recently. The Canberra multicultural community’s contribution started in 1949 and over a 30-year period more than 100,000 Europeans, most of whom did not speak the English language, arrived in this region to assist with the construction of the Snowy hydro scheme.
During and after the building of the Snowy scheme, many of the European workers and their families decided to settle in Canberra. They contributed to the Canberra community by opening retail stores and restaurants and offering food items never before exposed to our city. They continue to make a contribution to our community by crafting the cosmopolitan way of life that we all enjoy today.
Those pioneering first generation families from Greece, Italy, Croatia and other countries have made an enormous contribution to the development of our city’s physical and retail infrastructure. Underneath the slick veneer of a modern, planned and professional city accommodating and sustaining a public service workforce, these first generation families were contributing to the foundations of a strong, vibrant and culturally rich and diverse community.
Their remarkable contribution throughout the second half of the last century should not be underestimated, undervalued or overlooked when it comes to explaining how our city is one of the best in the world today. In very real terms, they built the city in which we live today. Today Canberra is the home to thousands of individuals from dozens of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Their various cultures and religions are celebrated every day and every weekend with festivals, family gatherings, worship time at churches and at club outings.
We would all appreciate that since the influx of Europeans in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, we have had several waves of refugees and migrants choosing to settle in Canberra from Indochina, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently from the African countries. All have made a significant contribution to the rich cultural diversity of our city.
It is timely that we are discussing in this place today the contributions that a multicultural community makes to the ACT just a few weeks after the concluded National Multicultural Festival. The festival is a celebration of our cultural diversity and a manifestation of the success of multiculturalism. From the face of the festival, who hailed from Austria and Germany, Wolf Blass, to the headline act, with his Italian and Maltese ancestry, Anthony Callea, through to the hundreds of people who either performed, ran a stall or volunteered their time to run this fantastic event, this festival was once again multicultural through and through.
I understand that there were over 300 stalls on the Saturday, with an increasing number of stalls coming through on Sunday. I have been told that there were over 2,000 performers who came from here, the region and from interstate and overseas just to be part of the fabulous celebration that we have here.
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