Page 1802 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2016
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Luckily, despite the immigration minister’s efforts being widely reported in national and international media, the real Australia continues to shine through: compassionate, concerned, friendly but, most of all, welcoming. Here in Canberra we continue to build on our status as a refugee welcome zone and we continue to work on new ways to help refugees become a valued part of our community.
We are working every day to ensure that our intake of refugees from Syria has access to the accommodation, support and opportunities that they need. ACT service providers are well organised and have strong experience in settlement services, including orientation, English language lessons, specialised health services, accommodation and referrals.
In this place, in this city, we will continue to show new arrivals what the true Australia looks like, not the hateful throwback language of the federal immigration minister, but the language and actions of a welcoming and confident nation and a welcoming and confident national capital that shows national leadership on this issue. I commend Mr Hinder’s motion to the Assembly today.
MRS JONES (Molonglo) (11.23): Today we stand in this place to reach a new low for the ACT Labor movement. It is a new low, trying to create division where there is none. These apparently divisive comments feature on the Labor Party’s national website as part of their own policy. Interesting, isn’t it? Maybe Mr Hinder, before he brings a motion to this place, should do some homework about what his own movement stands for and how, in bipartisanship, we have managed this issue over many generations.
My own grandparents left a war-torn and poverty-stricken Italy in search of a better life here in Australia. Neither of them had any English language skills when they arrived, which made settling into life in Australia very difficult. However, they were supported by English-language learning which was provided by the national government then, as it is now, in a bipartisan attempt to make sure that those we settle in this country actually have an opportunity to enjoy the benefits that this country has to offer.
They persevered and now my mother has recently completed her PhD in English education. Mr Doszpot, one of our own members of the Liberal Party here, fled Hungary. He had to walk out over the hills. As if the Liberal Party does not understand the life of a refugee; as if!
My grandparents, until their dying days, were not able to enjoy every single benefit this country has to offer because of their ongoing language challenges. These were people who had made a huge effort and who had been invested in. It often takes generations for people to fully enjoy the benefits of this country.
No-one in Australia would dispute the social and economic contributions that fantastic refugees have made to this country, and there are some very notable examples. However, Mr Hinder comes into this place with a motion under the guise of World Refugee Day, something that we all support and stand behind, and creates false division between the two sides of this parliament and the national parliament. He does
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