Our ancient continent has been a multicultural, multi-lingual and multi-faith land for thousands of years.
Victorian Premier's Multicultural Gala Dinner
Melbourne - 30 August, 2025
I start with a simple truth: Our ancient continent has been a multicultural, multi-lingual and multi-faith land for thousands of years.
I acknowledge:
The Wurundjeri as the traditional owners of this land, among hundreds of First Nations peoples.
To the centuries of intermingling with peoples to our north.
To our British and European migration heritage.
And now this miracle of modern multicultural Australia.
Despite the small minority who deny or protest this basic reality of our land, the vast majority of Australians cherish our multicultural character.
Indeed, our human diversity is our nation's defining characteristic and greatest strength in the century ahead.
That's true across Australia, but nowhere more so than here in Victoria. As a proud, lifelong Melburnian, it is so good to be here tonight.
Not just because I am home for the weekend between two weeks in Canberra.
But I can say without doubt, of all of the hundreds of multicultural events I attend across the country, this Premier's Multicultural Gala is the best!
Here in our most cosmopolitan state, everyone looks fantastic! Proud Australians. Proud Victorians. Proud of your heritage and identity. A room, tonight, in which everyone belongs.
I acknowledge all of the dignitaries, political, community and faith leaders.
But a special shoutout to our Premier Jacinta Allan. Jacinta is an 'old' friend – well, not old – but someone I've known and admired for near 30 years since we met as babies (babies who liked champagne).
What you see is what you get. Smart, kind, authentic, tough and thoroughly decent.
Watching Jacinta become Australia's most experienced, longest serving female Cabinet Minister ever was wonderful. And now seeing how she is growing into her role as Premier is a delight.
Thank you for your strength and compassion in leadership. Never taking a backwards step in standing up for equality and building a society in which everyone belongs, and for hosting us so graciously tonight.
I'll just make three points.
1. Firstly, a grateful thank you to everyone in this room for your leadership, through the good moments and the tough times
The majority of people here volunteer their time in communities to make other people's lives better, and make our diverse society work. To:
- Welcome and help people adapt to life in Australia
- Come together to celebrate and cherish traditions.
- And to share those traditions with other Australians.
The role you play and the advice you give to governments is genuinely invaluable and the Australian Government thanks you for it.
2. Secondly, an acknowledgement that while we have so much to celebrate here, we can never take our social cohesion or progress for granted
These are tough times in many parts of the world, with conflicts and tensions on nearly every continent.
Our society is globally connected. What happens overseas impacts daily life here.
We see this still, with the horrific, ongoing conflict in the Middle East, causing pain and trauma for Australians. Worried about loved ones in Palestine, Israel and the region. Protesting the loss of innocent life and rightly demanding that the killing stop.
We saw it this week with the shocking revelations that a foreign regime orchestrated violent acts on our shores. Which is already now the subject of bizarre conspiracy theories.
The point is though, that whenever tensions arise, it is the task of leaders to rebut misinformation and ensure events do not divide or harm our society.
For example, the ancient scourge of antisemitism. Jewish Australians are not responsible for the actions of the Netanyahu Government, whether they agree with them or not.
Nor are Iranian Australians responsible for the actions of the Ayatollah regime.
Nor Muslim Australians for violent actors who seek to hijack a peaceful religion, exacerbating the spike in Islamophobia here.
We are also not immune from the forces of right-wing extremism and populism. The Federal Parliament paused this week to mourn the shocking murder of two Victorian police. Who were simply doing their duty. They will rightly be mourned and remembered as heroes.
Sadly, that small minority who deny reality and contest our multicultural nature, plan to attend rallies tomorrow, organised by a grab-bag of neo-nazis and other fringe groups.
We are a nation of migrants and there is no place for hate in our society.
Every Australian, whatever their heritage, deserves to feel safe and welcome.
Australians of Chinese heritage copped it during COVID. Australians of Indian and south-Asian heritage are a target of these stupid rallies.
The point is that an attack on one of us for our identity is an attack on Australia, which diminishes all of us.
The Australian Government stands with modern Australia in condemning these rallies against reality and the motivations of the organisers.
They are not marches for Australia, they are marches against Australia. I will always stand with and stand up for multicultural Australia.
Racism of course exists in every human society on the planet. But it is very sad that some of our fellow Australians are so scared of people who are different to them, and get sucked in by these events and ethnocentric narratives.
How we, as leaders, act and react to such events though, contributes to our social cohesion.
Which brings me to my final point.
3. Despite all this, let us be proud of who we are and optimistic about our future.
The overwhelming majority of Australians love our multicultural character.
We see it in the research. We see it in the decency of most of our colleagues, neighbours and friends.
And we saw it at the Federal election when Australians overwhelmingly rejected the politics of fear, division, discrimination and toxic negativity.
Those leaders who operate in an echo chamber, pandering to their most extreme supporters, will fail. They failed nationally, and they will fail here in Victoria most especially. Real leaders cannot talk out of both sides of their mouth.
Australians will reject these attempts to create some half-baked Australian version of MAGA, and they will reject leaders who try to play footsy with these forces.
An Australian to me is anyone committed to our country and our democratic institutions, and to that basic principle of mutual respect for their fellow Australians. Who may be very, very different in their heritage, beliefs or identity.
Social cohesion doesn't imply that everyone agrees or is or thinks the same. It's about mutual respect, and accepting that we have more in common than we have differences as Australians, while disagreeing agreeably at times.
Multicultural success takes leadership at all levels. And government alone is not, and is never, enough.
Thank you again to every one of you here tonight for the work you do in bringing people together as Australians in this great nation of ours.