Editor's Blog

She spoke no English when she first went to kindergarten as a little girl in Wollongong, several years after her Italian parents migrated to Australia. But she went on to graduate as a lawyer from the ANU and in 2005 became a Senator for the state of New South Wales.

Last year, against the odds, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was appointed as the Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the Department of Social Services by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in his drive to have more women in Cabinet.

The Senator is described as perhaps the Liberal Party’s most vocal spokesperson for conservative multicultural views. Speaking to Jana Wendt in an SBS news feature recently, the Senator stated her conservative core beliefs – traditional marriage, family values, hard work – with a twist in the tail. These same beliefs, she insisted, are common to many migrant families. Based on years of interaction with such groups, she stated bluntly that the immigrant community was essentially conservative.

“I may be an assistant minister of the Crown but I am still the daughter of Italian migrants, and that doesn’t change – no matter what I do. It doesn’t change for the millions of daughters or sons of migrant families whose parents expect them to do certain things… In the multicultural space there are expectations and those expectations are transgenerational” said the Senator.

The NSW senator is up for re-election for a third term this year. A report in the Australian Financial Review has indicated that factional chiefs of the moderate and conservative sides of the Liberal party are jostling for poll positions in the run-up to an election expected to be called this year. Richard Shields, a former deputy state director and head of government relations for the Insurance Council of Australia, is being backed by the moderates to challenge the seat of Senator Fierravanti-Wells.

The Senator who now routinely works with migrant communities, and who “courts Poles and Bhutanese, hugs Latvians and Lebanese, liberally dispensing the government’s good wishes” will be a tough one to beat. Importantly, the AFR’s sources say, “the senator has the support of Mr Turnbull, and she would likely see off the challenge…”

In her maiden speech to the Senate in 2005, the Senator explained her drive: “I have tried to lead the past 25 years of my life in service to the community and to the public. People often ask me why I want to serve in public life. For me, the answer is simple. My parents came to this country to build a better life for themselves and for their children. Their journey is but a snapshot of millions of similar journeys. They are not published anywhere except written deep in the hearts and memories of those who took the journey and those, like me, who follow them. This country gave my parents so much—I have always wanted to give something back. And so, as I stand here today, I honour the journeys of those before me and I look forward with dedication and resolve to my journey ahead.”