Senator Fatima Payman delivered a stirring first speech to the Upper House on Tuesday evening as the first person to ever wear a Hijab in Parliament.
Opening her speech with a traditional Islamic greeting, Assalaamu Alaykum, translating to “May peace be upon you all”, Payman thanked those who supported her journey into politics and expressed her gratitude “to this beautiful country” for affording her and her family a better life.
But with her family watching from the gallery, Payman also spoke courageously about her experiences of racism in Australia and being made to feel like “the other”.
“Cruising in my own world of endeavours, I stumbled upon my first experience of being made to feel like the “Other” at a university tutorial when a young man ridiculed my hijab,” she said.
Despite times of feeling like she didn’t belong, Payman said these experiences shaped her opinion that the way forward is “humanistic, optimistic immigration” in Australia, and called for an end to bigotry, discrimination and racism.
“It is a country that offers so much to so many,” she said. “People travel from all parts of the world in the hopes of calling Australia home. My family and I also had that same hope.”
“While at times and even in this very chamber, xenophobia has raised its ugly head, fear mongering and divisive sentiments have been shared about our immigrant population, but the simple truth remains that as a nation we need a humanistic, optimistic immigration,” she said.
Addressing fellow Senators and an on-watching Prime Minister, the 27-year-old Western Australian quoted Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s first speech, saying she seeks a nation where Australians can share “regardless of race or gender, or other attributes, and regardless of where they live and where difference is not a basis for exclusion”.
“Let us not settle on multiculturalism being just a brand we associate with and take pride in as a nation, but rather fully embrace it by caring for one another, by accepting each other for who we are and what we can become and by ensuring all voices are heard at the table.”