Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:32): I rise to speak on budget paper 3 and the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s output initiatives on multicultural affairs. Over the past week – and indeed it is still ongoing – I have had the great privilege of joining many in our Indian community in very many Diwali celebrations across my region and across the state as well, whether it be the BAPS Kids Diwali in Cranbourne, Tamil Pengal in Australia’s Diwali in Rowville, the Celebrate India event at Federation Square, indeed the Premier’s Diwali last week or the Cardinia Gujarati Association. I see Ms Shing is in the room; she was there. I got to partake in a wonderful garba dance – nothing like learning how to do a dance that you have no idea how to do and then looking up and seeing both the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop and Dr Heath filming you. There have been many, many terrific events and many opportunities to celebrate one of the many diverse, wonderful communities that we have here in Victoria and particularly in the south-east.

However, today I wish to comment on something that is altogether less pleasant, and that is some of the disgraceful attacks that we have seen made by some on our Indian community. Just about a month ago in an interview with the ABC’s Background Briefing program, federal Liberal Senator Jacinta Price claimed that the federal government had a focus on bringing in migrants from particular countries over others before specifically singling out the Indian community. This is not only a disgusting assertion implying that Indian people are migrating here only to fill some sort of political objective of the government, it is laughably false. We have had a proud bipartisan immigration intake program for many, many years. But notwithstanding the idiocy of this conspiracy, it is an insult. No ethnic group should be told that they are only here to fill some cynical political ploy. They are here to make better lives for their families and to contribute to our societies. Certainly for most of my Indian friends and most of the other Indian people that I know, I am quite confident that if anyone told them that they had to vote a certain way, they would quite rightly tell that person to get stuffed, as they should.

But this Liberal attitude has not come up in isolation. In an Australian op-ed last week Liberal adviser, grandee and mouthpiece Peta Credlin disparaged new Australians, saying that migrants pose a threat to our prosperity and our social cohesion, and that Labor is apparently ambivalent about our history and wants to dilute our core Anglo-Celtic culture. She goes on to say that:

The multiculturalism that pervades official thinking is an abandonment of the Anglo-Celtic core culture and the Judeo-Christian ethos that have made our country great …

What makes our country great is the contribution of all Australians – of our Indigenous Australians, of our Anglo Australians, of those of British and other European descent and of our multicultural Australians as well.

This is, of course, the same Peta Credlin who has been spotted sitting down for a nice little coffee with the Leader of the Opposition in Victoria and continues to impose her dogma and influence over the Liberal Party to this day. Words like this have consequences. Many in our Indian communities are feeling hurt right now, feeling like maybe they do not belong. I know this because they have told me, and I cannot imagine how many are feeling this but have not spoken up.

But to Victoria’s Indian community, my message is clear: you belong. As the Premier said in her Diwali address last week:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Generations ago, European migrants came to Australia, and particularly Victoria, to build a better life for themselves and for their families.

My grandparents were amongst them.

But what they also did was contribute to this state and made it the vibrant, successful place it is today. Today, the exact same can be said of our Indian communities.

Our new Australians living in Victoria could have chosen to live anywhere in the world. They chose us. They chose to come here. It is time the Liberal Party affords them some respect.