Ethnic Communities' Council of NSW 50 Year Gala Dinner
Thursday, 22 May 2025
Le Montage, Lilyfield
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC
Binowee,[1] thank you for your Welcome to Country, as we honour the land on which we meet and the traditions of its peoples, of which a welcome to country is one of the most ancient.
An understanding of country is central to my remarks tonight.
But first may I join in acknowledging everyone present tonight on this important half century milestone in the history of multicultural Australia: Ministers Costis and Kamper,[2] Member for Oatley, Mark Coure,[3] former Ministers John Hatzistergos and Michael Photios,[4] members of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of NSW, past, present, and future, friends, family, distinguished guests all.
Tonight is a celebration of an Australia which is a very different place from the Australia in which even I grew up, in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Although, Australia has always been a country in the making… changing organically, politically, demographically, and socially.
It has also always been multicultural—with some 200 First Nations, and as many languages, across the continent prior to European arrival. Knowledge was passed on by storytelling, and today there are more than 200 other nations, from every part of the world, which are now also part of our storytelling.
Even the First Fleet had a multicultural hue, bringing some 14 different nationalities to these shores, from countries as diverse as the 4 countries of the British Isles, as well as Madagascar, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, America, and various African countries[5]—a motley group of individuals who knew nothing of the peoples whose uninterrupted millennial occupation of this land had come to an end.
Today, in a multicultural Australia, approximately one-in-three were born overseas.[6]
In his 2022 Boyer Lecture, Noel Pearson, one of Australia’s most profound thinkers, captured the three strands of this Australian story when he referred to:
The Ancient Indigenous Heritage which is Australia’s foundation, the British Institutions built upon it, and the adorning Gift of Multicultural Migration.[7]
However, for this shared story to work, it has to be a story of belonging. Belonging of its nature includes identity. In a sovereign sense, belonging includes citizenship.
Although the Commonwealth of Australia came into being on the 1st of January 1901, and only after a first failed referendum in NSW (it seems failed referendums were ingrained from the beginning), our identity remained as British subjects.6 There was no legal personality as an Australian citizen. That didn’t occur officially until the passage of the Nationality and Citizenship Act of 1948.[8]
Indeed, it was not until the Australian Citizenship (Amendment) Act[9]of 1984 that Australian citizens were not also British subjects. That Act also removed the previous automatic right for British residents in Australia to vote in Australian elections.
My parents, born in 1917 and 1918, strongly identifying as Australians—in the sense they never thought of themselves as anything other than Australians, would have been surprised had they known they were merely British subjects up until they had just turned thirty. Although they didn’t know it, that all changed on Australia Day 1949 when this new legal entity ‘Australian citizen’ came into effect.
I suspect they would have been even more surprised had they known they were still British subjects into their 60s, when the 1984 Act came into effect. This would have been particularly so for my mother, whose Irish grandfather came to Australia from County Cork in 1850 during the Great Potato Famine, a result of British policies in Ireland.
But that is a side story. For non-British subjects coming to Australia after the 1948 Act came into force, the eligibility criteria for citizenship were difficult to meet,[10] because of the barrier to entry under the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901,[11] which expressly preferred British migrants, as well as an engrained societal attitude amongst some, which had official endorsement under what was known as the White Australia policy.
Tonight is not the occasion to trace the gradual dismantling of this legislative and policy framework. Rather, I will skip to the end, and the final legislative repudiation of the White Australia Policy in the Australian Citizenship Act of 1973,[12] during the term of the Whitlam Government.10 That Act entirely removed preferential treatment for British subjects and applied the same eligibility criteria to all, regardless of country of origin in considering applications for assisted migration and Australian citizenship.[13]
The 1970s was a decade of change, particularly initiated in the Whitlam years, with the emergence of a more mature and independent conception of Australia’s place in the world. Not only was citizenship made equitable, there were other changes which marked our independence from Britain. Under the Royal Style and Titles Act 1973,[14] the Queen was titled ‘the Queen of Australia’; in 1974, ‘Advance Australia Fair’ was adopted as our National Anthem for the first time[15]; and in 1975, the Australian Honours System was established supplementing and then replacing Imperial Honours.
These legislative and official acts underpinned an emerging Australian reality of a truly multicultural country, given voice by the then-Minister for Immigration in the Whitlam Government, Al Grassby, in his 1973 policy paper, ‘A Multi-Cultural Society for the Future’[16], in which he outlined a vision of Australia that embraced cultural differences while fostering unity. This paper marked the beginning of Australia’s formal recognition of multiculturalism as its strength as a nation.[17]
Two years later came the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.[18]
Six weeks after that, the meeting at the Sydney Town Hall marking the inauguration of the Ethnic Communities’ Council (EEC) of NSW took place.[19]
The historical import of that moment is captured simply by listing those in attendance: not only the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, the future Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser—Peter has already spoken of their enduring legacy—Al Grassby, the future NSW Premier Neville Wran, but also, perhaps most importantly, the almost 1,000 representatives from ethnic organisations throughout our State.[20]
This brings me back to the sense of belonging, identity and citizenship to which I first referred. In 2020, the High Court of Australia was called upon to consider the sovereign status of two Aboriginal persons who didn’t hold Australian citizenship.[21] In the course of doing so, the Court considered what citizenship involves.
In essence, citizenship creates reciprocal obligations. On the part of the citizen, this requires loyalty or allegiance to the State; for its part the State owes protections to its citizens. The one cannot exist without the other.
Loyalty or allegiance involves having a sense of belonging—this is where Pearson’s trilogy is so powerful—it captures our sense of belonging—it is something intrinsically Australian. It involves a connection to country in a truly metaphysical sense, and, if we allow ourselves the time, a connection to country that we can feel. This is why this is such a spiritual land. It is a sense of belonging which is protected by the State, wherever in Pearson’s trilogy one’s identity resides.
The milestone we mark tonight—50 years of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of NSW—is intrinsic to this, our identity, our shared Australian story.
[1] Ms Binowee Bayles, Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council.
[2] The Hon Sophie Cotsis MP, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Work Health and Safety, and Member for Canterbury, Parliament of NSW; and the Hon Stephen Kamper MP, Minister for Lands and Property, Minister for Multiculturalism, Minister for Sport, Minister for Jobs and Tourism, and Member for Rockdale, Parliament of NSW.
[3] Mr Mark Coure MP, Member for Oatley, Parliament of NSW, Board Member, Ethnic Communities’ Council of NSW
[4] The Hon John Hatzistergos AM, Former Attorney General and Minister, Parliament of NSW, Chief Commissioner, NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption; Mr Michael Photios, Former Minister for Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs, Parliament of NSW, Board Member, Ethnic Communities’ Council of NSW
[5] ‘They Came from Many Lands’, First Fleet Fellowship Victoria website, available here
[6] “[At June 2024] the proportion of Australia’s population born was 31.5%”: ‘Australia’s Population by Country of Birth’, Australian Bureau of Statistics website, available here
[7] Noel Pearson, ‘[Extract from] Boyer Lecture 2022: Noel Pearson on Indigenous Constitutional Recognition’, ABC TV, available here.
[10] ‘Defining Moments: Citizenship Act’, National Museum of Australia website, available here
[13] ‘History of Citizenship’, Australian Government Department of Home Affairs website, available here
[15] “In 1973 the Australia Council for the Arts held the Australian National Anthem Quest competition to find the lyrics and music for a new Australian National Anthem. The competition received more than 1400 entries for lyrics and 1200 entries for music, but the judges decided the entries did not meet the high standards of Australia’s traditional songs ‘Advance Australia Fair’, ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘Song of Australia’. As a result, the Australia Council for the Arts recommended the final choice for the Anthem should be made from these three songs. The Bureau of Statistics then ran a national poll of 60 000 people, which found ‘Advance Australia Fair’ was favoured by 51.4 per cent of people, followed by ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (19.6 per cent). In 1974 ‘Advance Australia Fair’ was adopted as the Australian National Anthem, but in 1976 ‘God Save The Queen’ was reinstated. In 1977 the Australian Electoral Office conducted another poll, which again found ‘Advance Australia Fair’ was the preferred anthem (43.6 per cent), followed by ‘Waltzing Matilda (28.45 percent).” In 1981 the National Australia Day Council recommended the Australian National Anthem consist of verses one and two of ‘Advance Australia Fair’ with some modification. On 19 April 1984 the then Governor-General, the Rt Hon Sir Ninian M Stephen KG AK GCMG GCVO KBE, proclaimed the Australian National Anthem the tune of ‘Advance Australia Fair’ and the verses drafted by the National Australia Day Council. At the same time, ‘God Save The Queen’ was first proclaimed as the Royal Anthem”: ‘Australian National Anthem’, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website, available here.
[16] The Hon Al Grassby, ‘A Multi-Cultural Society for the Future’, available here
[17] ‘Our History—Multicultural Affairs’, Australian Government Department of Home Affairs website, available here'.
[18] Available here. “Four versions of the Racial Discrimination Bill were introduced to Parliament between 1973 and 1975. The first three versions of the Bill were introduced by then Attorney-General Lionel Murphy on 21 November 1973, 4 April 1974 and 31 October 1974. None of them reached the stage of debate in the Senate, the third Bill lapsing with the general election in 1974. On 13 February 1975, following Gough Whitlam's re-election, the Racial Discrimination Bill 1975 (Cth) was introduced for a fourth time into the House of Representatives, this time by the new Attorney-General Kep Enderby. That Bill was identical to the Bill introduced on the 31 October 1974. The Bill was fiercely debated in the House before passing into the Senate in May 1975 where it was again debated over a number of days, returned to the House of Representatives with amendments and eventually passed, receiving Royal Assent on 11 June 1975”: Chief Justice Robert French AC, ‘The Racial Discrimination Act: A 40 Year Perspective’, speech delivered on 22 October 2015, p.13, available here
[19] Zita Antonios, ‘Raising the Issue of Race’, Infocus, vol 18 no 4, July/August 1995, available here
[20] Bill Jegorow, ‘The Rock on which We Stand’, Infocus, vol 18 no 4, July/August 1995, available here
[21] Love v Commonwealth of Australia; Thoms v Commonwealth of Australia [2020] HCA at [13]; judgment summary here. See also: ‘Case Note: Controversy Regarding High Court Decision Interpreting Constitution’, Rule Of Law Education Centre website, available here