Penny Wong, the country’s traditionally guarded foreign minister, has openly told the remarkable tale of how her family fled war and poverty to immigrate to Australia.
Senator Wong spoke to Asian leaders on Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and described how her father left his homeland of Sandakan and moved to Australia after the majority of her grandmother’s family perished in World War II.
In her opening remarks, Ms. Wong expressed skepticism that her grandmother could have ever imagined that she would one day return to the nation in her capacity as Australia’s foreign minister.
‘Poh-Poh (Ms Wong’s grandmother) was left alone to care for her children in the hardest of circumstances. She was barely literate,’ she said.
‘She was loving and humble, and the strongest person I have ever known.’
Ms. Wong claimed that her grandmother’s “will to endure” serves as her daily source of motivation.
Since the majority of the family members perished during the war, Ms. Wong’s grandmother was left to care for the children.
In difficult times, Ms. Wong said, “I think about her, and what she had to go through, and her will to live, and to preserve herself and her children, is something from which I take strength every day.”
Ms Wong said Australia’s Colombo Plan scholarship allowed her father to migrate to Australia and study architecture at Adelaide University, saying the opportunity defined his life.
‘It meant he could climb out of the poverty he experienced as a child.
‘It meant doors opened that would have otherwise been jammed firmly shut.
‘It meant he could come to Australia – a very different Australia from what we know today,’ said Ms Wong.
After meeting his Australian wife, Ms Wong’s father moved back to work in Malaysia in Kota Kinabalu where Ms Wong was born.
This week, Ms. Wong will travel to her hometown.
When I return to Kota Kinabalu today, I’ll be thinking about my family’s past, but the future is my main priority.
Australians are aware that Malaysia is a part of the area where we share borders.
Ms. Wong has already spoken out about the bigotry she encountered when she arrived in Australia as a youngster in 1976.
Ms. Wong was eager to commend Australia’s educational system and attributed her family’s escape from poverty to the chances provided by the nation’s universities.
‘The value of that education has never left him. He always told me: ‘They can take everything away from you, but they can’t take your education’,’ she said.
Ms. Wong stated in her keynote speech that Australia will be “sharpening” its attention on Southeast Asia, with future collaboration planned for the area, particularly with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
She wished for a “calm and predictable region.”
While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Spain and meeting with NATO leaders to discuss the issue in Ukraine, Ms. Wong is traveling the region.