High Steaks: Independent MP Dai Le on new movements based on race, religion, or global politics
Vietnamese refugee and proudly patriotic Aussie Dai Le has voiced concerns that new political movements could be the downfall of multiculturalism in Australia. The Independent MP sits down for a High Steaks lunch with James Morrow.
NSW
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“Stop, that’s too much hoisin sauce!”
Dai Le, the independent Fowler MP who famously cruelled Kristina Keneally’s dreams of re-entering parliament in 2022, is used to listening: to constituents, to the press, and even to the so-called experts who said there was no way she could beat the Labor machine at the last election.
But today I am the one listening as she gives instructions on how to eat Vietnam’s signature soup, pho.
“You shouldn’t put in so much hoisin, too much salt is bad for you,” she gently admonishes.
We are sitting at Pho Hien Restaurant on Canley Vale Rd in Canley Heights, just up the road from Le’s bustling electorate office.
It’s a local favourite of Le’s, and after a bit of back and forth and promises that there would be plenty of beef in the pho, she convinces me to abandon the rules of the column and sub out the steak: “I’m not much of a steak eater,” she tells me.
And as our noses fill with the warming aromas of the restaurant’s signature six-hour soup broth, it’s not hard to see why.
Talking over bowls of hot beef noodle pho in one of the most diverse suburbs in Australia — around two-thirds of locals were born overseas — Le reveals her worries about the multicultural society that welcomed her as a refugee and saw her sit in parliament.
Social media, divisiveness, and a lack of faith in the nation by our political class are paving the way, she says, for new independent movements that don’t look to solve local issues but rather stoke grievance and base themselves on race, religion, and global politics.
“We just don’t celebrate, we don’t take pride in the fact that we are Australian,” she says, explaining how this situation developed.
“That’s what the message is that we need to push more, is that you are born here, or you came here, because you chose to or your parents chose to.”
At first this seems like an odd thing to say. As we sit down, Le switches effortlessly between languages as she is greeted by Vietnamese families and elderly Anglo couples, all out for meal on a blustery Sydney afternoon.
At Pho Hien, multicultural harmony seems to be in full force.
Yet just days before our chat, a group calling itself The Muslim Vote made headlines with its threat to run independent candidates against Labor in Western Sydney off the back of local anger in Islamic communities about Gaza.
This, says Le, is a problem.
To her, focusing on an issue on the other side of the world is the opposite of what being an independent member of parliament should be about.
“I can feel pain about, say, the loss of innocent lives in Gaza, or famine in Africa, but what can a small country like Australia do?”
“How can we bring those issues up without dividing society and causing anger and inciting anger in our very multicultural society?”
Le says that community relations are particularly frayed by social media, which allows images from Gaza or anywhere to be beamed instantly to people’s phones.
Yet she also proposes a new formula for how we can think about our society.
“You know, my son, who’s born here and his dad’s of German background, when you ask him he says, ‘I’m Australian of German and Vietnamese heritage’, and that’s what we can celebrate.
“We should think of ourselves as ‘Australians of multicultural backgrounds’, not as a multicultural community that lives in Australia.”
Le, who is developing her own Western Sydney Community Party with nearby Fairfield Mayor and local powerbroker Frank Carbone — it’s “early days”, she says — remains fiercely focused on what is going on in her backyard.
“My responsibility is what I can deliver for my community overall.
“You know, for instance housing, the Albanese government talks about building 1.5 million homes in five years, I know that they can’t do that, maybe they can do 200,000 homes.
“So I look at opportunities on how to make that happen, what can we do to address that shortage?”
She also says the government needs to be focused on “job creation” as well as crippling energy bills.
Asked about nuclear power, Le says we “should have a conversation” about it as a possible option, but says that the crisis is more immediate in her area and people needed prices to come down now.
“I know businesses, their energy bills have gone up thousands of dollars a quarter; and the prime minster announced a $325 rebate for small businesses? Yeah, right.”
Yet this bread and butter — or beef and noodle — focus does not get in the way of bigger thoughts about where the nation is headed.
Le remains focused on a bigger picture, which includes concerns that a declining sense of national unity and “patriotism” means that sectarian groups based on race or religion are the natural response as people — and particularly new migrants — are left trying to figure out where they fit.
To fight this, Le says “we need to have a program that encourages people to know — and I know maybe some people don’t like the word integration — but how to be integrated better into Australian society.
“We say these words, we have these pledges at citizenship ceremonies, but it stops there, and there’s no education beforehand and there’s no education afterwards.”
Many new migrants, she says, “retain their cultural heritage, which is fine”, but without a push “they remain drawn like magnets within their own communities”.
Le — who famously gave her first speech to parliament in a traditional Vietnamese ao dai-style dress bearing the emblem of the Australian flag and loves to celebrate Australia Day — says migrants should be encouraged to be proud to be part of Australia.
And as we stir bean sprouts, basil and chilli into our pho — giant bowls of shaved beef, meatballs, noodles, and a broth that gives up a rich sequence of aromas from star anise and cinnamon to slow-cooked beef — Le reveals the surprising place where she first learned to really appreciate what the Australian experience is all about.
“You know, one of the greatest things I loved, I still remember this from primary school,” she begins, before warning me that I’ve put too much chilli into my soup (I lived).
“They used to have a place called Old Sydney Town,” she says, recalling the old Central Coast open-air museum, that obligatory field trip destination for countless primary school classes.
“And that’s where I learned about the convicts, the history of Australia, and the convict settlement here, and how hard it was to really build this nation, and what Australia started from back then.”
“I mean, I know the other side will say, well, you know, Australia got invaded, but I think we need to acknowledge that without that settlement, without the hardship of the convicts … Australia wouldn’t be where it is today.”
Le, now 56, arrived in Australia aged 11 after she, her mother, and her two sisters made a harrowing escape from Vietnam as the Communists swept to power after the end of the Vietnam War.
After spending three years in refugee camps in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, the family made it to Australia, where they were helped by neighbours and local Catholic charities.
“That community involvement in resettlement is no longer as active as it used to be,” she laments, recalling how her mother pushed her and her sisters to learn English so they would be able to get on and make their own way in Australia.
“Now it’s all about services, and when it becomes about services it changes the relationship to one where people become reliant.”
Today, she says she is grateful to her mother, who died a year ago, for getting her and her siblings out of Vietnam.
“On my last trip last year, I thought to myself, I’ve got relatives there that are, you know, selling stuff in the market, selling fish in stalls, and if my mother did not do that, I’d be in Vietnam now, and yeah, I could be doing that.”
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