Doorstop - Diwali Festival, Paramatta Park
4 November 2018
JULIAN LEESER MP, MEMBER FOR BEOWRA: My name is Julian Leeser and I am the Member for Berowra and I am also the Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of India. It’s such a great delight to welcome the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison here to the Hindu Council’s Diwali celebration at Parramatta Park and the Minister for Immigration, the Hon. David Coleman.
This is the biggest Indian Festival in NSW, it’s the biggest Diwali festival in NSW and I think that it’s the first time a Prime Minister has visited this Festival, it’s particularly special. I want to wish all of my Indian constituents and all of Indian background a very happy Diwali. It’s wonderful to have a Prime Minister and Minister who are so supportive of our community.
PRIME MINISTER: Thank you Julian, it’s great to be here with you and of course with David Coleman, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and Border Protection.
It’s wonderful to be here, namaste, at this tremendous festival, this festival of faith, this festival of light, this festival of prosperity. The festival of the triumph of good over evil and there’ll be a wonderful fireworks display later on tonight. This is just one of the many, many different faith communities that come together from all around our country. This is the great thing about Australia; we’re a free country, free to believe. Freedom of faith, freedom of association, free to get together at our public parks and places all around the country and to celebrate what is to be an Australian here in Australia from the many different backgrounds that we have.
In terms of our relationship with the Indian community and India itself this is an area of enormous growth in terms of our relationship. Indian nationals moving to Australia today as David will tell you, is the fastest growing and largest of any group coming to Australia today. There is such an alignment of beliefs and values that make this such a happy fit. A very happy fit, so it’s great to be here today celebrating with the Hindu community here, out with the Indian community here in Parramatta. This is really Mumbai central in so many ways when you think about the community and how it comes together so I’m sure we’re going to have a great time.
It’s wonderful to see families coming together many, many different generations, everybody dressed up. That’s what multiculturalism in Australia is all about and I’m just pleased to be here and play my part as Prime Minister to lend my great support for a wonderful, community family faith event.
The ability to come and do this in this country is one of the reasons in fact, I’d argue one of the most important reasons, why our county is such a strong country. This is what we need to preserve, this is what we need to ensure to be maintained in the future. Our freedom of faith, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of gathering together and so with that I’ll hand over to the Minister who is responsible for ensuring we continue to uphold all of those great values. Thanks a lot David.
THE HON. DAVID COLEMAN MP, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Thank you, thanks PM. Good afternoon everyone. It’s wonderful to be here to celebrate Diwali. Thank you to the Hindu Council of Australia for putting on this fantastic event one of the biggest events held, not only in the Indian community but the Australian multicultural community more generally.
It’s a wonderful celebration of the triumph of light over darkness. When you think about that, that is a wonderful theme, it’s a great time every year when families come together, catch up, reflect on the year that’s past and the year to come. We are as the PM said, so fortunate to have a nation where people from all corners of the globe have immigrated to Australia, have made us stronger, more than five million people since the Second World War have immigrated to Australia and built what is the greatest country in the world. We are so fortunate to have our freedoms, our religious freedom, our freedoms of association and events like today remind us all what a wonderful multicultural society we are all so privileged to be a part of. Thanks very much.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks David. Happy to take some questions and happy Diwali. I’ve bought the family out with me tonight. There’re here, Jenny is all saried up and she looks fantastic and as do all the other wonderful people who have come out in traditional dress tonight.
JOURNALIST: A couple of questions on a little bit of a serious note, I’m Pawan Luthra from Indian Link, just want to take your views about keeping the numbers of immigration as they are. I understand there is a policy being thought about, regional migration but will the numbers be where they currently are going forward in the next couple of years?
PRIME MINISTER: The immigration program is one that is built from the ground up and we’ve got different population challenges all around the country. Places like Sydney and Melbourne, we’re feeling the pinch. The congestion-busting infrastructure where investing in in Sydney and Melbourne is designed to try and free up the cites and ensure they can continue to function effectively working together with the State Government here in NSW who’ve been a tremendous partner to work together to get this infrastructure in place which makes our cities more liveable. But you’ve got other parts of the country, over in Western Australia and up north and in Queensland and South Australia where they want to see more people come to the country. What my Government is about, is ensuring that we’re working with State and Territory governments to get the migration plans which support their population growth plans. So where the jobs are, so where the infrastructure is, where the services are, where health is, where schools are, that’s where we need to plan for the population to be. That means continuing to have a migration program which supports that.
As a Prime Minister, as an Immigration Minister, as a Treasurer, I’ve always been supportive of the positive role, economic social role that immigration has made in this country. Australia is the most successful immigration country in the world today. There is no doubt about that, it’s daylight second. We are the most successful immigration country in the world today, but we have to work hard to keep it that way. That means we have to manage our population growth to ensure that we manage the services that need to be delivered to a growing population and that we need to manage how that population lifts across the country and it’s just not here in Sydney and in Melbourne but right across the country, particularly in other areas where they need more population and they need the entrepreneurial spirit of the international community which is the first amongst the small and family businesses here in Sydney or in Melbourne or wherever else I go. We want to see those opportunities spread right across the country.
JOURNALIST: And as a follow up on the lighter side, it’s great to see Mrs Morrison in a sari.
PRIME MINSITER: She looks pretty good doesn’t she!
JOURNALIST: Did you find the sari for her?
PRIME MINSITER: No, no, Jenny actually owns it, she actually owns a sari. This is one that a friend helped her with this afternoon and I think she looks gorgeous in pink.
JOURNALIST: So you were practising for today, you cooked something Indian last night I believe?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes I did, I cooked a Mumbai chicken curry last night as I do on most Saturday nights when I’m home. It’s been a tradition in our family for many, many years now on a Saturday night it’s called curry night and friends come over or it’s just family it’s just a great time, just like it is in any family around the country. Getting together around food and I love cooking it, I think it’s great fun.
JOURNALIST: Do you have a favourite dish?
PRIME MINISTER: There are too many, but my daughter’s is butter chicken of course. What kid doesn’t like butter chicken? But for me, I’ve got to say the one I had last night which was the Mumbai chicken curry. Now I cooked it, but it was the one of the best ones I’ve had for a while. Jenny likes the Bangalore chicken curry but for me I think the Mumbai is going pretty well.
JOURNALIST: Do you like any sweets, Indian sweets?
PRIME MINISTER: No I’m not a big one on the sweets I’ve got to say, but maybe what I should do is a tour of all the sweets here.
JOURNALIST: Do you like Indian movies?
PRIME MINISTER: We watch a bit of Bollywood.
[Applause]
I think it’s all pretty good. I’ll give it a go, I think Julian is going to give it a crack a little later. I think that will be great fun.
JOURNALIST: So most of the immigrants here are skilled immigrants and with the recent focus on moving them to regional areas, what is your focus on creating jobs, skilled jobs outside the city area?
PRIME MINSTER: That is exactly the point and this is why I’m working with State and Territory governments, because they are the ones investing in the economic infrastructure. They’re the ones doing the planning about where the jobs are and that’s why it’s a real ground up programme making sure - and this is David’s absolute focus as the Minister - to ensure that the migration plans that we have marry very closely with the jobs plans, with the infrastructure plans with schools and hospitals. Where there’re going to be, we want people going into places where they’ll get all those opportunities and that will reinforce the growth in regional areas right around the country. But there will continue to be very vibrant, very lively - as we’ll see here tonight - migrant communities right across Sydney, right across Melbourne, right across Brisbane, Perth, everywhere. It is part of the fabric of our community.
I cannot think about my home town Sydney without thinking about places like Parramatta and how wonderful Parramatta is as Geoff Lee would say, how good is Parramatta? I’m not talking about the rugby league team now - my team’s the Sharks but Parramatta is not bad. So it’s a wonderful part of the fabric of our community and that’s on display here and that’s why when Julian asked me to come out. I knew Geoff really well as well and wanted me to come out to Diwali. It’s not my first time here, I’ve been here on other occasions and it’s great to be back here as Prime Minister. I know this is a real treat for David as well to see the vibrancy.
I’m going to finish on this point; this is a religious festival this is a festival of faith, it’s about optimism, it’s about hope it’s about triumph, it’s about family, it’s about looking into the future with positivity. These are the things about faith which uplift us and that’s why freedom of faith and freedom of religion and making sure we protect it is very, very important. Very important to me, it’s very important to my Minister’s and my team. It’s very important to the Liberal Party, extremely important to the Liberal Party that we protect the freedom of religion and faith in this country, whatever your faith or religion is. That’s what matters, your freedom to practise and pursue it and come together as a community like this is what Australia is all about.
Thanks very much.
