Australia part of Asia, minister says on visit to Malaysian birthplace & More News Here

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong speaks throughout a information convention throughout her assembly with Malaysian counterpart Saifuddin Abdullah in Putrajaya, Malaysia, June 28, 2022. Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Huzaini Mat Hussin/Handout by way of REUTERS

SYDNEY, June 30 (Reuters) – Visiting the Malaysian metropolis the place she was born, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong mentioned her story confirmed that Australia was part of Asia, as new knowledge confirmed greater than half of Australians had been born abroad or had an immigrant mother or father.

Wong visited Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah state, the place she lived for eight years as a baby earlier than migrating to Australia, as part of an official visit to Malaysia.

“One in two Australians are either born overseas or have parents who were born overseas so this is a very Australian experience,” she advised media on her first visit to Malaysia since a Labor authorities received workplace final month.

“It matters that Australia speaks to South East Asia in a way that recognises that we are part of this region and our futures are shared,” she mentioned.

Results of a census performed each 5 years and launched on Tuesday confirmed for the primary time greater than half of the Australian inhabitants (51.5%) had been born abroad or had a migrant mother or father.

“We are a multicultural and diverse nation … It is one of the strengths of who Australia is and we should tell that story in the region more,” she mentioned.

Wong recalled a day earlier in a speech that her grandmother, of Hakka Chinese descent, had raised her youngsters alone in Sabah after most of the household died in World War Two.

Wong’s father received an Australian scholarship to examine structure on the University of Adelaide, which “meant he could climb out of the poverty he experienced as a child”.

He married an Australian lady, and the couple returned to increase a household in Kota Kinabalu.

Wong’s feedback and official visit to Malaysia come 20 years after a former Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, famously mentioned Australia couldn’t be a part of an East Asian diplomatic group as a result of “they are Europeans, they cannot be Asians”.

Britain, India, China, New Zealand and the Philippines had been the largest supply nations for the virtually one-third of Australian residents who had been born abroad, the census confirmed, with Asian nations mixed a much bigger supply than Britain and New Zealand.

Mahathir, who didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, had predicted in a 2019 newspaper interview that migration meant Australia would in future “be more Asian than European”.

Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; extra reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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