Stefan Romaniw fought for Ukraine and for multiculturalism

State and federal leaders come out in bipartisan support to grieve Australia’s tireless ambassador for multiculturalism – Stefan Romaniw.

Stefan Romaniw. Picture: NewsWire / David Geraghty.

Australia’s Ukrainian community on Friday farewelled its mighty man, Stefan Romaniw, and the ­nation said goodbye to its greatest Australia advocate of multiculturalism.

Appropriately, this took place at a state funeral at Melbourne’s St Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral before Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, and three of her recent predecessors, Jeff Kennett, Steve Bracks and Ted Baillieu, with representatives of the Prime Minister and Governor-General.

Romaniw wore many hats over the decades as he fought for a better Australia and healthy local Ukrainian community and, more recently, for the survival of their ancestral homeland under attack and daily bombardment by Vladimir Putin’s Russian armies.

He also fought for the Essendon Football Club and proudly enrolled two Ukrainian presidents and a dozen ambassadors to that cause. His grandchildren sang to their hero and read notes of respect each ending with “Go Bombers!”

In an extraordinary life of public service, Romaniw was chair of the Victorian Multicultural Commission and Multicultural Arts Victoria and the state’s Australia Day committee and was executive director of Community Languages Australia.

But it was his other roles as first vice-president of the Ukrainian World Congress and co-chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations that has kept him so busy since February 2022 as he crossed Australia and the globe seeking help for the ­defence of Ukraine, visas for refugees (all of whom planned to go home and help rebuild their ­nation) while maintaining the health and coherence of the diaspora. He was on one such trip to Lithuania last month when he fell ill in Poland on his way home. Bill Shorten spoke on behalf of Anthony Albanese, but also as an old friend about the powerful and manifold achievements of Romaniw, whose daughter read out for several minutes a list of his community ­appointments, and after several minutes ended with “but, his day job was …”.

Shorten said his friendship with Romaniw was cemented during and after the trauma of MH17, the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet downed by Russian forced 10 years ago next week. All 298 aboard were killed, including 38 Australians. The jet fell on eastern Ukraine, an early victim of the first attacks on the country.

Wreckage fell on a field of sunflowers, which Mr Shorten said were “synonymous with the strength, beauty and spirit of the Ukrainian people”. “His tireless advocacy for the Ukrainian people brought political representatives of all stripes ­together to pledge support for our Ukrainian friends in their fight. Stefan helped us see that Australia is more than an island. We are linked by a shared humanity with the whole of the world,” Mr Shorten said.

Ukrainian ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko said Romaniw was “a fighter”. “This is a heavy loss not only for the entire Ukrainian global community,” he said.