The refugee who defeated Kristina Keneally in a combat chair chokes on the memory of how she nearly drowned while fleeing Vietnam.
Dai Le won Fowler’s seat in south-west Sydney on May 21 when the former NSW Labor Prime Minister attempted to skydive from her wealthy enclave 70km away.
The independent MP took a swipe at Ms Keneally in her maiden speech to parliament on Monday, also comparing the Covid lockdowns to the tyrannical regime she fled as a child.
Ms Le wore a traditional Vietnamese cheongsam printed with an Australian flag as dozens of supporters cheered her from the gallery of the House of Representatives.
She told how she escaped the fall of Saigon in April 1975 at the age of seven on a rickety boat to Hong Kong with her mother and two younger sisters.
Her father, a lawyer who worked for the Americans, did not come on the boat and she never saw him again.
“I remember running with my mother and two younger sisters, scrambling to get on a boat and pushing through the screams and screams of women and children. I had no idea what was going on,” she said.
“All I can remember are the screams, the panic, the chaos and the one moment on the boat when I turned to look back at my homeland to try to understand what was going on and I just saw but great black smoke in the distance.
“I remember the moment I thought we would die if a big storm hit our boat.”
Mrs. Le’s voice broke as she remembered holding the boat for life with her sister as the boat rocked and her mother held my other sister tight in her arms.
“I remember being soaked under the tarp when the ocean hit us and the rain poured down,” she said.
“I remember my face almost touching the ocean when our boat rocked so hard in the storm and I remember my mother warning me to hold my sister and a plastic canister, in case the boat capsized, until we could. find each other.
“As I tried to see through the sail, all I heard was the storm and… [I] was terrified that we wouldn’t survive because none of us could swim.
New MP Dai Le wore traditional Vietnamese clothing printed with an Australian flag as dozens of supporters cheered her on from the gallery of the House of Representatives
“My mother continued to pray, prayer beads in hand, as the boat continued to rock. The ocean was pitch black and all I could think about was falling into this black abyss.
“I kept praying in my heart that if the boat capsized, I’d still cling to my sister and find my mother.
The next morning the storm passed, but everyone was exhausted. I remember seeing bodies lying on the boat like corpses.
‘I remember the years in refugee camps, dreaming of being able to lie on a real bed. To have a good home and go to a good school.”
Ms Le choked again, this time with joy and gratitude, as she told how Australians welcomed her family.
“I remember when we were accepted to be resettled as refugees in Australia, known to many in refugee camps as the island with the best education system in the world and when we [Sydney Airport] the sense of acceptance and gratitude,” she said.
“We were full of hope as we looked out to the horizon of endless possibilities.
‘Australia, you have welcomed my mother, my family with open arms. You have given us comfort, food and a warm bed to sleep in.’
Mrs. Le’s voice broke as she remembered holding the boat for life with her sister as the boat rocked and her mother held my other sister tight in her arms
Ms. Le thanked Neil and Kylie Williamson, who helped her family integrate and were at the gallery for her talk, and a friend who introduced her to Anzac cookies and made her feel like she belonged.
Her mother worked in house cleaning, starting with that of an Italian migrant who started a shoe store.
But as grateful as Ms Le was for the way Australians supported her family, she had tough words last year for the NSW Covid lockdown which was particularly harsh in her area.
She compared the restrictions imposed on Western Sydney, which was controversially stronger and more policing than the rest of the city, to the communist dictatorship her family fled.
“We weren’t allowed to travel more than 3 miles from our homes, we were told to get travel permits, we were forced to be tested every three days, we had helicopters flying around our area as well as police on horseback.” and men in uniform knocking on the door,’ she said.
“While the intention was good, we are a city of people who have fled tyrannical regimes and war zones, such as my own family and my own homeland.
“Last I looked, a government that takes away the freedom of individuals to choose how they want to live, work and raise a family was called a communist dictatorship—a political system that my family and I escaped.”
Ms Le, who stepped into local politics over a parking lot in Cabramatta when she was an ABC reporter, was elected as an independent in the heart of the Labor region after backlash against Ms Keneally who was selected to contest the seat over local candidates.
Former NSW Prime Minister Kristina Keneally was dropped into Fowler’s ultra-secure Sydney Labor electorate but saw a huge swing against her to give Ms Le an unlikely triumph
The former senator was elected by Labor headquarters despite living 70km away on the wealthy Scotland island on the northern beaches, and renting a house she’d dumped days after the election loss.
Voters rejected her so much that the seat moved from a Labor majority from 28 percent in 2019 to five percent in favor of Ms Le.
“We felt it was time for one of us with life experience, who was mature, who works lives and spent most of our lives in that community fighting and standing up for us to represent us,” he said. Mrs Le in her speech.
‘Especially in recent years during Covid and lockdown, conversations started with a small team. Can we sit back and take our community for granted again?’
“The people Fowler wanted and needed was a representative who came from their community and who would never forget the personal challenges they face every day, who have been in our shoes and have lived through what they went through.
“Not just at election time, but every day.”
Ms Le said this was necessary because her electorate had been “neglected and abandoned by the major parties” and despite their resilience “we are not a privileged people”.
She pointed out that Fowler had the third highest unemployment rate in Australia at nearly 10 percent, three times the national average and a 20 percent lower median income.
Forty-two percent of residents are renters, compared to the 32.6 percent NSW average.
Ms Le said Fowler was also one of Australia’s most multicultural voters, but there was not enough support for newcomers.
Ms Le is congratulated by opposition leader Peter Dutton after his maiden speech
She encouraged the government to first fix skills shortages among people already in the country, given the unemployment rate of its constituents.
“If we need to bring in more migrants, the government has a duty to ensure that there are immediate plans to build more housing, more public transport infrastructure and more local services for this planned increase,” she said.
“Our community has seen the settlement of nearly 10,000 refugees with no additional places for hospitals, schools, waste services, road maintenance… or employment.”
Ms Le said that if immigrants were resettled without the necessary services, they would be left to fend for themselves “in a foreign country, … feeling marginalized and demonized.”
A huge crowd in the gallery gave her a standing ovation, including many Vietnamese heritage in traditional dress, as she chanted her name.
A long line of MPs, including opposition leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, formed to congratulate her.