Xian nian kuai le
Gong hei fat choy
Saehae bok mani badeusey
Chuc mung nam moi
Thank you so much for your kind invitation to be here with you today.
Thank you to the organisers and every volunteer and every member of this great community for making this festival reality.
This is what community is all about.
It also gives me great pleasure to acknowledge Premier Chris Minns, Mayor Trenton Brown, and of course your fantastic representative in Federal Parliament, Jerome Laxale.
This is a wonderful time of year, one that has become such a cherished fixture on the Australian calendar with families, friends and communities coming together in joy and celebration to share in centuries of tradition.
As we gather to welcome the Year of the Snake, we look forward together with optimism for the new opportunities that a new year brings.
And we wish each other good fortune in all that matters most: our happiness, health, family and prosperity.
Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese cultures have enriched Australia and broadened our horizons.
The contribution of your communities is something to celebrate every day of the year., not just Lunar New Year.
I talk with small business owners, who do so much to lift their communities as they support their families – and they become part of the backbone of the economy in the process.
I speak with parents and grandparents who have come to Australia to make a better life, not just for themselves but for their families and generations to come.
You have all helped write the Australian story. You have all helped shape the great multicultural nation that Australia has become.
Just as you are an intrinsic part of who we are as a nation, you also part of our face to the world.
You have helped develop Australia’s place in the region.
I will never take your communities, or your contribution to our nation, for granted.
We are fortunate to be located just south of the fastest growing region of the world in human history.
For a long part of Australia’s history, we spoke about the tyranny of distance and how we need to overcome it.
Now we speak about the proximity of opportunity, the engagement that we have, and there is no asset that we have in this country that is greater than our people.
And it’s our people, and those people with people links in our region that are so important..
Once again, I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to bring this year’s event together.
Every dream and every vision is at its most extraordinary when it is turned into reality.
I wish you all a great day and a safe and happy Year of the Snake.
