PENNY WONG ADDRESSES HISTORY OF COLONIALISM

Penny Wong with US Secretay of state Blinken. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

In a landmark speech at King’s College London yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong addressed Britain’s history of colonialism in Australia and the Indo-Pacific Region. 

Ms Wong spoke of her own family’s history as people subjected to colonialism.

“My father is descendent from Hakka in Cantonese Chinese, meaning from these clans, laboured in the British North Borneo Company, in tin mines and plantations for tobacoo and timber, many worked for domestic servants from British colonists, as did my own grandmother”

Ms Wong said confronting our colonial past can help Britain and Australia find common ground.

“But understanding the past enables us to better share the present and the future, it gives us the opportunity to find more common ground than if we stay shelted in narrower versions of our countries histories.”