PM Morrison at Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple

Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the Hindu Society’s Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple yesterday. Mr Morrison spoke very highly of the Indian community in Australia and his love and affection for Indians in Australia and those in India. He also spoke very highly of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Excerpts from his speech at Shri Shiva Vishnu temple:

So Namaste, Namaskarom, Vanakcome, Sat Sri Akaal. Friends, it is great to be with you today. It’s, it is with great honour that I join you here. This is the most successful multicultural immigration country in the world today. There’s no doubt about that. And that has been achieved by the many millions of people who’ve come from all over the world, all different faiths, many different beliefs, many different ethnic backgrounds, language groups, and here we all are here in this wonderful country, Australia.

When I talk about multiculturalism in Australia I often talk about it in the, as if in the context of masala. And you’ll think about a masala, a wonderful masala and how it brings together all the different spices and the smells and the colours. And they all come together, the different tastes, the bitter and the sweet, and then it makes something as you taste it, and you smell, and the aroma is something wonderful. And then you mix it in with your onions, and your chillies and your garlic, and I’m looking forward to the cooking. And it creates something absolutely magnificent. And this is, I think, a wonderful metaphor of what multiculturalism is in this country. And in particular, I think what the Hindu community and Sikh communities and so many other communities of faith bring to this country.

And to you Mr President, I thank you for your leadership of the Hindu community, but I’m sure you would agree with me that it’s each and every member of that community that makes it so incredibly special, and that they bring something to it, and the way that communities, faith communities like your own, have reached out and supported each other and that people have been able to find comfort and reassurance in their faith as they’ve gone through such difficult times.

…

I spoke to Prime Minister Modi just a few weeks ago, just over, just over a week or so ago. And he spoke to me in appreciation of both the prayers and support that is coming from the community here in Australia. He knows the community here in Australia very well and he speaks fondly of it every time that he and I speak together. And he knows that there’s such wonderful support coming back to the Indian nation from right here, whether in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland or wherever the community is gathered together.

So we do have great friends here. We will continue to provide that friendship to India and all of those countries that continue to be affected so terribly by what is happening in COVID around the world. But for now, it’s for me just simply to say thank you. Thank you for the great support that you’ve provided to one another. Thank you for the love and care that you’ve extended, not only to your own family members, but community members of what is such an integral part of the Hindu faith and so many of the other faiths is you welcome people in, and on those special days and providing that hospitality and that warm welcome, and it doesn’t matter whether it is Diwali or Holi or the end of Ramadan or Easter, or whatever it happens to be.

Faith and Australian life go firmly together. And as Prime Minister this is something that is very dear to me. So the fact that you can come together and be here safely is very important to me. But it’s also very important to me that you keep doing it, because from that are the bonds of community that continues to carry Australia through what has been a very difficult time.

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