For the first time in the 50-year history of Australia’s Vietnamese community, a Lunar New Year festival was honoured by the presence of both of the nation’s highest political leaders.
The attendance of Albanese and Dutton not only recognised the Vietnamese community’s contributions to Australia but also highlighted the essential role of SBS, the country’s leading multilingual and multicultural broadcaster, which now delivers programming in more than 60 languages and is celebrating its own 50-year milestone.
Lunar New Year, now part of Australia’s cultural fabric
When asked about his earliest memories of Lunar New Year celebrations in Australia, Albanese recalled them as an integral part of his upbringing.
“I grew up around Marrickville. So, in Marrickville we have had Lunar New Year celebrations for a long period of time, and it’s a great celebration of our multicultural community,” Albanese said.
Dutton also shared his appreciation for the significance of Lunar New Year in Australia.
“This is a great celebration of the Vietnamese community and Lunar New Year, it’s about family and it’s about making sure that we have the best country in the world to celebrate and that’s exactly what we do tonight,” Dutton said.
Recognising the contributions of the Vietnamese community
Albanese acknowledged the profound impact of the Vietnamese-Australian community on Australia’s cultural and economic landscape.
“One of the great things about Australia is the diversity that we have here, our multiculturalism, our economic relationships, our people-to-people relationships, and the Vietnamese community have made such an extraordinary contribution here in Australia, particularly over the last five decades, and we’ve been enriched by the food, the language, the culture, the joy and the celebrations,” Albanese said.
He also highlighted the remarkable economic contributions of the community and described their journey as “extraordinary”.
“The Vietnamese community have been so fantastic in small business. I’ve spoken to Vietnamese Australians who’ve made an enormous contribution, but people have come here to make a better life for themselves, for their children and their grandchildren, and it has been quite extraordinary,” he added.
Dutton reflected on the early years when Australia welcomed Vietnamese refugees, expressing pride in his party’s role in that history.
“I’m incredibly proud that it was a Liberal government that brought people from Vietnamese background into Australia between 1975 and 1983. We had 15,000 people per year, about 90,000 people in total, and those people have gone on to provide a wonderful opportunity for their children and their grandchildren,” Dutton said.
“Vietnamese people work hard, they have a great sense of family, and they want to educate their children, they want to live peacefully and contribute to community and society. And it has been a wonderful migration story and now something around 300,000 people have Vietnamese heritage and we’re a very lucky country to have that heritage and that history.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton attended Tet Festival 2025 at Fairfield Showground. Source: SBS / Ashley Mar
SBS: 50 years of connecting communities and supporting integration
As the Vietnamese community commemorates 50 years of settlement, SBS also marks five decades of service, becoming an integral part of Australia’s multicultural and multilingual media landscape.
Albanese emphasised SBS’s essential role in fostering inclusion and ensuring access to information for all communities.
“We had a big celebration in Canberra for SBS’s 50 years in conjunction with the Lunar New Year and SBS has played such an important role in giving information, giving language services, making sure that we’re an inclusive country and I’m a great supporter of us being inclusive, us celebrating our multiculturalism,” he said.
Dutton also reaffirmed SBS’s significance in maintaining connections between migrant communities, stressing the importance of its ongoing role.
“SBS provides a wonderful service to people of many multicultural communities, in language, in English, and it provides a connection between different communities and diasporas around the country, so we want to make sure that SBS can be a very strong part of communicating that message into the future as well,” he said.
