The Good Migrant

The senator [Senator Fierravanti-Wells], who has more than 30 years’ experience working with multicultural groups and has close links to the Muslim community, said the government needed to build a relationship of trust with communities at risk.— Cameron Stewart and Sarah Martin, The Australian, October 2

It is 1885 and an exciting period for Australia. The flow of foreign capital into the colonies is strong, Hugh Victor McKay patents the stripper-harvester, Sheet Anchor wins the Melbourne Cup and the Richmond Football Club is formed.

Internationally the situation is less certain. A New South Wales contingent of infantry and artillery is sent to the Sudan to fight Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, after he defeats Major General Charles Gordon at Khartoum. In South Australia, the cabinet meets to discuss the Russian scare. Australian nationalism is on the rise and the policy to keep Australia European—that is, non-Asian—is in place.

Around this time, a young man named John, the Australian-born son of a German Jew who arrived during the gold rush of the 1850s, writes to his cousin Leo in the United States. Leo, it seems, favours his German heritage over his American birthright, and this position causes John some disquiet:

To what country and people do I owe most?

To that which I have never seen, with which I have no connection but that it is the home of some of my relatives?

Or to that in which and among whom I was born, have grown up, where I have learned all that I know, to which I owe all the happiness that I have experienced?

Shall I in return for this look upon it as a foreign land to be deserted at the first convenient opportunity?

No.

It is my native land. I have contracted from it a heavy debt and it will ever be to me a prominent object in some measure to repay that debt.

The quote resonates deeply with me. I too am a first-generation Australian and I too felt as a young boy a heightened sense of national feeling equal to if not greater than that of the predominantly Anglo-Celtic children among whom I grew up in Sydney. But why?

For my part, I didn’t see my family or me as different from the other good families at McAuley Preparatory School—the Goulds, the Daltons, the Malleys or the Boyds—and I didn’t know my father spoke with an accent until it was pointed out by a classmate in Grade 4. But different I was, apparently.

So, was my sense of national pride because of, or in spite of the daily reminders at school that I was an outsider, a wog? Such was Australia in the 1960s, I was once told I was a poof because my parents drank wine instead of Resch’s Dinner Ale with the evening meal.

While the abuse was unpleasant, mostly it left me confused because I was a good boy. I worked hard, tried to be nice to others, turned the other cheek and told the truth even if it meant corporal punishment meted out by teachers. I did as my Mum and Dad taught me.

My parents, Giuseppe and Livia, and their families were Italian refugees from a Europe still in chaos from the Second World War. They met on board the ship to Australia but disembarked at different cities, my father’s family in Melbourne and my mother’s in Sydney. The year was 1951.

Life was tough. My father at seventeen years of age became the sole breadwinner for his family because his father, an engineer, could find no suitable employment and, eventually, no employment at all. So Giuseppe, who was known as Pino, found whatever work he could, from picking fruit to carting cement blocks, and sent the money back to his parents. Livia at fifteen also had to supplement her family’s income, which in part was derived from a dairy cow. Livia was exceptionally bright and industrious and could have been and wanted to be a doctor but necessity drove her to a factory job screwing lids onto toothpaste tubes.

Money, they had little. Hard work and determination they had in abundance. Less than eight years after arriving in Australia with virtually no English, they were broadcasting on 2CH the very first bilingual radio program in Australia as a purely commercial venture. The program provided news and current affairs from Australia and Italy; in English for the Australians and in Italian for the Italians. For those days, it was an extraordinary achievement because Australia was so insular. It was a time, for example, when olive oil was considered a pharmaceutical product and could only be purchased at the local chemist.

Like other migrants, Pino and Livia lived through the difficult process of becoming part of the Australian fabric of life. However, they resisted the attraction of living among other Italians. They knew that their experiences would not be their children’s experiences; that which moved their Italian souls would not be the same for their children. So they led by example and moved into predominantly Anglo-Celtic suburbs in order for their children to grow up as Australians.

They continued their work for the Italians and became community leaders, eventually becoming as familiar to prime ministers as they were to the greengrocers. But they genuinely lived Rudyard Kipling’s lines, “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, / Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.”

They guided the Italians and the other ethnic communities by way of their radio programs and journalism as well as more formally through Pino’s leadership of the Ethnic Communities Council of New South Wales. Here Pino battled self-interested separatists who wished to pursue political agendas rather than employing the unifying tool of a common language—which was his approach.

Such was the contribution they made to both Australia and Italy over the coming decades, Pino was awarded Commendatore (Commander) in the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy as well as a Member of the Order of Australia (Honorary Division). Livia was awarded Cavaliere (Knight) in the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy.

Reflecting on the example set by my parents, perhaps it is not so surprising that I felt the way I did towards Australia. Despite the hardships and alien nature of their new home, I remember from their stories the gratitude they felt for the opportunity they had been given, and like thousands of other new Australians, make the best of it they did.

They worked and strove to benefit themselves and their families. They travelled to where the work was, not looking for a handout but just a chance to get ahead no matter how modest. They worked hard to develop trust between themselves and the Australians among whom they now lived. They had a legal right to be in Australia but this did not automatically confer upon them any level of emotional connection from Australians. To think so would have been the height of immaturity. It’s not unlike how a parent might react to a beloved daughter’s new boyfriend: “Yes, you are welcome here but watch your step.”

Even though I was born here, I too was treated with suspicion. It might not be fair, but there you have it. I looked different and I was different until I proved otherwise. And so I did. Amongst other achievements, I served for twenty-four years in the Australia Defence Force including service in the elite world of Special Forces. To its credit, the ADF at no time cared about my background, only about the performance of my duties. I earned my place here and I have earned the right to say my piece.

So, now let me address new migrants directly.

It is not the responsibility of the Government or the people of Australia to establish trust with you. It is up to you to establish trust with us, and this trust must be earned. You are guests in our home. “Yes, you are welcome here but watch your step.”

Trust is not some vague or woolly concept. It is hard and measurable and comprises many parts, and chief among them are honesty, consistency and loyalty. So do you believe you are worthy of our trust? As the old television advertisement once asked, “Try this quick quiz …”

Have you and your community leaders been honest with us, by our standard of honesty?

Have you and your community leaders been consistent in support of Australia?

Have you and your community leaders been loyal to Australia?

Until the answer to all these questions is an unequivocal “Yes”, you are not be trusted. To trust you would be folly and in the current climate of terror, would potentially invite disaster.

Trust by its very nature will take time, effort and proof on your part to earn.

Which brings me to the quote by John at the beginning of this article. To what country and people do I owe most?

The John to whom I refer is, of course, General Sir John Monash GCMG, KCB, VD, arguably the most eminent and greatest Australian of all time. Monash, the son of German Jews, who made Australia his home, became a soldier, engineer, lawyer and administrator. Monash, whose military leadership was so valued by King George V of Britain that he was knighted on the battlefield; the first time a British monarch had honoured a commander in such a way in 200 years. Monash, whose sheer brilliance was so highly prized that he was being considered to replace Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig as the senior commander of British Forces in the First World War, had it continued into 1919. Monash, who asked the question that is now more pertinent that ever: To what country and people do I owe most?

For all of us, here in the Great Southern Land, and at this time in history, there is only one satisfactory answer to that question.

So the next time Senator Fierravanti-Wells speaks to a multicultural group, she might like to consider asking them first to answer Monash’s question.