Thursday, 9 September 2021

Ms RICHARDS (Cranbourne)

I am honoured to represent a vibrant and diverse community. I have spoken often of the joy that this diversity has brought to me and the good fortune that we in Victoria share with this extraordinary decision people make to choose Australia as home.

Not long after being elected I began to be invited to join the Afghan community at the many social and cultural events that have punctuated my time in this role with great joy.

I experienced the delight of Afghan poetry and sublime music with the Bakhtar Cultural Association, where discussions of women’s rights were interspersed with dancing and performances of the highest calibre.

Only weeks later I was invited by the Association of Hazaras in Victoria to come along to meet the children at their Saturday school, an experience that brought me great happiness where I met the sparkling wits and clever youngsters of the Cranbourne community as they learned about the home their parents were born in and their mother tongue and spent time in the company of other young people.

On that same day and again later on many occasions I joined the women for endless cups of tea and warm hospitality as we discussed the universal themes of sisterhood and support for each other. I always came away from my time with these women aching from laughter and filled with optimism.

My Saturday evenings have been spent with the Afghan Australia Philanthropic Association, the Victorian Afghan Associations Network, the Active Afghan Association and of course the wonderful women of the Shamama Association Australia, United Cultural Support and Women for Change.

It is in this context that I have got to know the great challenges that our wonderful community bring with them—worries over family left behind, guilt over the danger to their families, concern for women’s rights and activists or just vicarious trauma from their own experiences escaping terror.

Today I pay tribute to the extraordinary Afghan Australians in the Victorian community, whether their forebears arrived as cameleers in the 19th century, as part of the diaspora who escaped the early ravages of the war decades ago, or they are those who have found their way more recently, some by boat, in terror and fleeing for their lives.

I am grateful for the friendship they show to me; I admire greatly their altruistic approach to their neighbours, the hospitality always extended to whomever crosses their path and their optimism for their children as embodied by their enthusiasm for education.

And today I mourn with the Afghan Australian diaspora who are watching their country dissolve into war. I was honoured to be a main point of contact for the community over the past weeks and have been joined in this concern by my colleagues particularly in the south-east. I pay credit to the members for Narre Warren South, Dandenong, Narre Warren North and Oakleigh for their tireless work over recent years and particularly in the last weeks for their hard work in supporting our community through these harrowing last weeks. I also pay credit to a member for South Eastern Metropolitan Region, Mr Tarlamis of the other place.

I also take time to acknowledge the work of the federal member for Holt. But particularly I thank and am grateful to the federal member for Bruce, who has worked night and day for months and years to support his Afghan Australian community in their quest for a humanitarian response. And in the past weeks the member for Bruce has been personally supporting appeals and raising awareness of the highly volatile situation faced by his constituents.

I offer my deepest condolences and share the great sorrow as the Afghan community mourn their loss.

Please know that we stand in solidarity with the Afghan Australian community today and always.