Speech by Mike Rann Australian Ambassador to
Italy at the “Encountering Australia: Transcultural
Conversations” Conference at Monash University’s
Prato Centre, Tuscany, 24 September 2014
I am delighted to be here as Australia’s Ambassador to
Italy to join you at this conference. Monash University
showed extraordinary vision at establishing this Prato
centre at the Palazzo Vaj in 2001. It, and the European
Association for Studies of Australia – founded back in
1989, have together become a dynamic, 21st century
bridge between Italy and Australia, renewing, through
research and conferences like this, the rich ties founded
on massive Italian migration to Australia, particularly
over the last century.
And that is why the theme of this conference
“Encountering Australia: Transcultural Conversations” is
so important. Australia is one of the most migrant
countries in the world. For countless migrants Australia
has represented “opportunity warmed by the sun”. A
relatively safe, peaceful and prosperous island continent
that offers enormously enhanced life chances for
migrants and their children.
I guess I am an example of this. I have three citizenships.
I left London as a schoolboy when I was nine when my
working class parents emigrated to New Zealand. Later,
at the age of 24, I migrated to Adelaide. Eight years later
I was elected to the South Australian Parliament. That
can happen in very few places in the world.
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My wife Sasha, who is with us here today, was born in
Australia. Her Pugliese parents migrated from Italy. Her
father took a job as a hairdresser and to encourage him to
learn English his boss cut his pay in half until he learnt.
These days Australia is proudly multicultural. Instead of
the “melting pot” where other countries ask migrants to
wave goodbye to their heritage and culture as well as to
their homes and families, Australia has become a
stronger, richer nation by asking migrants to share their
culture, language and cuisines with their fellow
Australians.
Recently, at the Salento International Film Festival in
Tricase in Puglia I launched the Melbourne film Lygon
Street Si Parla Italiano. It tells the story of the
development of Melbourne’s Little Italy from the 1950s
until now. It deals with a number of difficult subjects
including initial suspicion and prejudice through to not
only an acceptance but a celebration of Italian culture.
Sir James Gobbo, former Governor of Victoria and
patron of the Prato Centre, is amongst the great
characters featured in this documentary. I strongly
recommend it to you.
I am sure your discussions at this conference will also
focus on identity, about what it means to be “Australian”
and what it means for a migrant to become “Australian”.
Two years ago someone asked me whether being a
citizen of three countries meant I had “divided loyalties”.
This was after more than 30 years of Australian
citizenship, of raising two children in Australia, and
serving 26 years as a Member of Parliament. I found the
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question quite offensive. Of course I’m proud of my
London roots and family ties and of my New Zealand
education which enabled me to be the first in my family
to ever go to university. And there’s no doubt that my
time in the Politics department at Auckland University
gave me the groundings I needed to eventually become
Premier of South Australia. But like so many migrants I
am very much a passionate and proud Australian. It’s
interesting that the majority of people who attend
Australia Day events were not born in Australia.
Perhaps one of the best examples I know is the
appointment just a few weeks ago of a Vietnamese-born
Australian Hieu Van Le, as Governor of South Australia.
Hieu arrived in Australia the same year I did, in 1977. I
came by plane. Fleeing the Vietnam War and its
aftermath, Hieu and his wife came to Australia by
steering a small leaking boat. They were refugees. The
journey was perilous. And just as they saw the white
sands of northern Australia shimmering before them at
dawn, two zinc-nosed fishermen approached in their
tinnie. One raised a stubbie in salute and shouted “g’day
mate, welcome to Australia”. Hieu and his wife Lan were
embraced by Australia and became key leaders of the
Vietnamese and wider multicultural community, in doing
so honouring their pasts whilst celebrating their future.
They named their two sons after two of Australia’s most
famous cricketers, Don Bradman and Kim Hughes.
Australia is continuing to change. Economically we are
much more aligned with Asia than we were back in the
50s, 60s and 70s. This makes sense. For years it was said
that Australia’s development was hampered by “the
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tyranny of distance”. That phrase meant that in order to
export and travel to do business we were a long way
from our traditional trading partners in the UK and in
Europe. With Asia we have “the advantage of
adjacency”, located next to the fastest growing region in
the world. Already 75% of Australia’s exports are to
Asia, with China the recipient of 31%.
Australia is gearing up for further economic and cultural
engagement with Asia with Julie Bishop’s New Colombo
Plan and following the report of the Asian Century white
paper published a couple of years ago which
recommended that every Australian school offer an
Asian language – Mandarin, Japanese, Indonesian,
Korean or Hindi. Cultural engagement and economic
engagement must go hand in hand for real, lasting and
positive relationships.
However, this greater embrace of Asia does not mean a
lessening of ties with Europe. The UK, for instance, is
the second biggest investor, after the United States, in
Australia - with more than 500 billion dollars’ worth of
investment. Australia in turn invests more than 200
billion dollars in Britain.
Italy and Australia, both members of the G20, are
already strong trading partners with the trade balance at
present firmly in Italy’s favour. However, there is strong
interest from Australian business in the current economic
reform agenda now being pursued here in Italy. And a
number of Australian companies are now taking greater
interest in doing business here. I hope Prime Minister
Renzi’s visit to Australia for the G20 in November, the
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first of any Italian prime minister, will further boost the
relationship.
Westfield for instance is investing 1.3 billion euro to
build the biggest shopping centre in Europe in Milan. It
will be a big Australian flagship presence here in Italy.
Similarly the biggest online real estate company in Italy
casa.it, also based in Milan, is also 100% Australian
owned.
But today we focus on education where links between
Australia and Italy are also growing. Last year 5,377
Italians studied in Australia with a student visa across all
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courses, vocational courses and secondary school study.
This represented an increase of 37% from 2012. Indeed,
there has been an average increase of 30% each year for
the last 5 years and Italy now has the second highest
number of students in Australia of all European
countries, after the United Kingdom.
Education is important economically for Australia. It is
now our third largest export industry. But it is bigger and
broader than that. The friendships and contacts made
through education often last for decades and so does the
cultural understanding that comes with studying abroad.
Young people come home with a broader understanding
of the world, as well as their host country. And that’s
why Monash’s Prato Centre, EASA and this conference
are so important. And let’s today remember that great
pioneer of this relationship Bernard Hickey, who hosted
your conference in Lecce in 2001 and who for decades
promoted Australian studies in Italy and in Europe. And I
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am so pleased to see his friends from the universities of
Salento and Udine here with us today. We thank
Professor Hickey and honour him by our presence here
today.
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