Excerpt:
The government frontbencher Concetta Fierravanti-Wells says Muslims in Australia face prejudice as they arrive at the same “crossroads moment” faced by preceding waves of immigrants.
The minister for international development has used a contribution to a compilation rebooting Robert Menzies’ “forgotten people” speech and essays to reflect on the challenges Muslim Australians face, and to emphasise the importance of open dialogue inside and outside the community.
She says the various waves of immigrants since the early days of European settlement have all been “targeted” – from the Chinese, Irish and Germans, through the postwar cohort of Italians and Greeks, the Vietnamese and Lebanese in the 1970s and, more recently, Muslim groups.