As the independent member for one of Australia’s most diverse electorates,she delivered her speech in a dress like none other – a traditional Vietnamese áo dài made from fabric printed with the Australian flag.
Independent Dai Le said:“I thought that what best represents me and the Australian story is the Australian flag and a Vietnamese dress,which is my heritage.”Alex Ellinghausen
And her message about multicultural Australia was met with cheers from public galleries filled with more colours and creeds than have ever made it to the floor of the House of Representatives.
“I thought that what best represents me and the Australian story is the Australian flag and a Vietnamese dress,which is my heritage,” Le toldThe Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age afterwards.
“I’m somebody who has embraced both the Australian culture and the Vietnamese culture and that’s what I want to celebrate – the multicultural Australia that we have here. And that’s me,and that’s why I wore the dress.”
Born in Vietnam in 1968,Le spent several years in refugee camps before arriving in Australia with her mother and siblings in 1979. She became a journalist and,later,a city councillor in Fairfield in western Sydney. She stormed into parliament in the May election with a,former NSW premier Kristina Keneally.
Le’s speech included an account of her escape from Vietnam by boat – “all I could hear was a storm,terrified we couldn’t survive because none of us could swim” – and her decision to run (unsuccessfully) as a Liberal candidate for NSW parliament in 2008 and then become an independent councillor for a decade.
She also spoke of her dismay at state government orders during the COVID-19 pandemic that kept the residents of western Sydney in their homes.
“The last time I looked,a government that takes away individuals’ freedom to choose how they want to live,work and raise families was called a communist dictatorship,” she said.
Le said her community reacted strongly to Labor’s attempt to “parachute” someone into the community but did not name or criticise Keneally. She argued for continued migration to Australia but said governments had to ensure more housing and transport as well as services so migrants did not have to “fend for themselves”.
In her maiden speech,Independent Fowler MP Dai Le has likened lockdown conditions placed on her western Sydney community in 2021 to 'a communist dictatorship'.
Several hundred supporters – including her husband Markus and son Ethan – applauded from the public galleries and chanted her name when she finished,suggesting she has a significant base to help her against Labor at the next election.
The resumption of parliament on Monday included first speeches from Labor MPs Alison Byrnes (representing Cunningham in the NSW Illawarra) and Carina Garland (Chisholm in eastern Melbourne) as well as Liberal newcomers Henry Pike (Bowman in Brisbane) and Keith Wolahan (Menzies in north-east Melbourne).
Byrnes spoke of the importance of the Labor agenda for social housing and her background as an adviser and “staffer” in politics over 29 years before becoming an MP.
Wolahan,a barrister before entering parliament,spoke of his time as a commando and platoon leader in Afghanistan and sent a powerful message about the need to assess Australia’s involvement in a conflict that began in 2001 and continued to the fall of Kabul in 2021.
“We have a duty to take stock of our longest war,” he said.
Wolahan named the,which found “credible information” that Australians were involved in the murder of non-combatants in Afghanistan,but also said the war showed soldiers were capable of extraordinary bravery and sacrifice.
He named two friends,Marcus Case and Greg Sher,who died in Afghanistan.
“The stocktake must preference truth-telling over myth-making,” he said.
“From the allegations in the Brereton report to the fall of Kabul,we have a duty to face up to all that happened. Twenty-one years later,we can fairly ask:How did we reorder the world around us?
“If we answer that question with humility,then we will recognise the limits of military power alone. If we answer that question with honesty,then we will have demonstrated that ours is an open and accountable democracy. That is something worth fighting for.”
Wolahan joins Liberal defence spokesman Andrew Hastie and Liberal MP Phillip Thompson as veterans of Afghanistan who now serve in parliament.
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