Well, thank you, Sneha. I don't know if you can tell from my face, but I'm incredibly excited to be here. Thank you so much, Aunty Violet, for your beautiful welcome to Country. Can I also acknowledge that we stand on Ngunnawal land and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to First Nations people joining us from around Australia here today. I do have to give a shout out to WA representing with the hospitality there. They're my peeps. But, and also, can I just acknowledge how much I love this concept? I think it's a great concept. So, I am just incredibly honoured and incredibly excited to take on the role of Minister for Multicultural Affairs and as a standalone Minister in Cabinet, and to give you a sense of why that's so important to me personally, I want to tell you a little bit about my background.

So, as you all might know, I'm a migrant myself. My family arrived from Egypt to Australia about 57 years ago. No, let's not make myself older than I am. It was 55 years ago, 1969. Oh, that makes it 50 - whatever, you guys do the math. And you know, my dad was an engineer. He went to university; he trained as an engineer in Egypt and came to Australia. We landed at the Bonegilla Migrant Training Camp in Albury-Wodonga. Mum was a nurse, dad was an engineer, and we were among some of the first families from Egypt, from a non-Western European background, to come to Australia. Even though my dad was an engineer, he worked on the factory floor for many years before eventually becoming a bus driver. Never worked as an engineer here in Australia, and I saw the impact that that had on our family. I saw the economic impact that it had, but more importantly I saw the social impact that it had on our family, what it meant for my father who, back in Egypt, his family had placed so much importance on getting an education and going to university to come here and work in unskilled work and not within his field of expertise.

And the interesting thing is 55 years later I talk to migrants and it's the same story. It has become automatic, an effective kind of response that this is the migrant story. I want to change that. I want to change the migrant story in Australia. I want us to take this opportunity because it is a huge opportunity, and I don't want anyone to underestimate how great this opportunity is to recalibrate what multiculturalism means. When I think about multiculturalism, when my family arrived, it was me, my mum, my dad and my older sister. My younger brother came along a little bit later. He was born in NSW. Never let us forget the fact that he was the only Australian-born one. Now my family, my broader family consists of people who were born in Canada, Bosnia, Mauritius, Somalia, First Nations, Burmese, trying to think, who else? I don't want to miss anyone out. New Zealander, Irish. Did I mention Canada? Yeah, because that's my husband. Burmese, Bosnia. Did I mention Bosnia? Bosnia.

And when I think about multiculturalism, I think about my own family because even within generations we have different cultural norms and different cultural practises. When I do an event like when I go and celebrate Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr with my sister-in-law's side of the family that's Bosnian, you know, we eat pita and we have very Bosnian traditions and we speak Bosnian, we say Bayram Mubarak, we don't say Eid Mubarak, we say Bayram Mubarak. When I sit with my sons and my son and his partner who is a New Zealander, they're vegans. There's only so much tofu I can have in one day. But it's not just about the food, right? For so long, multiculturalism has been this trope about, you know, nice exotic looking food and, as long as it tastes like chicken and, you know, nice dress. And I think that's an important part of it. It's a really important part of expressing your cultural traditions and your cultural heritage is in the food that you eat and the clothes that you wear and the way in which you break bread, breaking bread with each other and sharing that with people.

But there's a much more substantive side that I want us to tackle. I want us to look at this substantive side of multiculturalism that can sometimes be overlooked when we're focused only on the celebration. And that is really addressing that migrant story, really changing that migrant story, taking this great opportunity to change that migrant story and to change what multiculturalism means. That it's not just about those exotic looking people that come from overseas, but it's about each and every one of us, because each and every one of us has culture. And for each and every one of us, even again, within our own families and within generations, those cultures are different, they're multicultural. We are all within our own family structures, within our own communities, there is multiculturalism. That's what I want us to do. I want us to be a serious policy office that makes a real impact on the lives of people. I want multiculturalism to mean something to second and third and fourth generation Australians. I want, when we think about multiculturalism, we think about things like my family that came here as four people from one country and now encompasses, I don't know how many people, maybe 50 people from so many different countries, so many different cultural heritages and, and language backgrounds as well.

And I know we're going to do this. I know we're going to do this because I'm looking at all of your faces and I'm just so optimistic about what we're going to achieve together. The difference that we're going to make to the lives of people together. The way in which we're going to shape our Australian identity, that multiculturalism isn't just a policy or it isn't just about celebrating. It's actually a word that describes the character of this beautiful country that we live in, and it applies to everyone and everyone has a stake in it. So, congratulations, congratulations everyone on being a part of this. A huge thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you for all the work that you've done thus far. From the briefings, great briefings, keep them coming, love them. To the kind of, the work around establishing the office, to the work that we're going to be doing together as well. Today is a great day. It's a really great day and each and every one of you has played a huge role in that, including all of you guys online as well. I am really looking forward to working with you all, to achieving what we're going to achieve together, to making that difference, to reshaping what multicultural Australia means and to having a real impact, having a real impact.

So, congratulations. Let's get to work. I'm going to charge you with something. I'm going to charge you with being bold and brave and coming up with some big ideas and really helping me guide this work. That's what I'm going to be looking to all of you to do. And I encourage you to do that, and encourage you to see this as a real opportunity, and to really find your place in making that change, and to feel that sense that I feel, that great honour and privilege that I feel to be in this place right now, in this moment in time.

Thank you so much.