Dai Le, Australian Federal Member for Fowler, delivered a spectacular “Australians-are-racist” narrative buster in her maiden speech on Monday.
To the chagrin of Leftists, the newly elected representative also wore a traditional Vietnamese áo dài fashioned into an Australian flag.
Le, a newbie on the federal political scene made heads spin by wearing what the Independent MP said, was a celebration of Australia as the land of “hope, freedom, and endless possibilities.”
“Mine is a refugee settlement story,” Dai Le explained, “I was seven years old when Saigon fell during the Vietnam war in April 1975. My mother was forced to flee with my two younger sisters escaping communism. It was a time of chaos and confusion.”
Having survived both breast cancer, and communism, Le paid tribute to the Australian people, and their embrace of her family, after Le, her sister and mother fled Vietnam – following the predominantly North Vietnamese betrayal of the Paris Peace Accords.
Australia, Le said, “you [the people] welcomed my mother – my family – with open arms. You gave us comfort, food, and a warm bed to sleep in.”
Adding more for Leftists to hate on, Dai Le used the opportunity to acknowledge, and thank the 60,000 Australians who served during the Vietnam war, saying she wanted to “pay tribute to all of the Australian servicemen and women who fought for our freedom in Vietnam, and who continue to serve us today.”
The member for Fowler in Sydney’s West, also spoke on the importance of individual responsibility, implying a distaste for the evils of government dependency.
Le slammed the recent abuse of power by bureaucrats in Australia, equating State and Federal responses to COVID-19 with communism.
“The last time I looked,” she exclaimed, “a government that takes away individuals’ liberty to choose how they want to live work, and raise families, was called a communist dictatorship. A political system that my family and I escaped from and many other refugees escaped from especially the Vietnamese Australian community.”
Le lambasted the overreach, adding, “We weren’t allowed to travel beyond the five-kilometre radius from our homes. We were told to get travel permits. We were forced to get tested every three days. We had helicopters flying around our area, as well as police on horseback, and men in uniforms knocking on people’s doors.”
The morale-boosting patriotic speech outshone sitting Labor member for Reid, Sally Situo – also a refugee who fled communism – and her woke compromised tribute to the Nation in July.
In a quick shot aimed directly at Australian Labor’s policy of party first-people last, the Independent MP said, it was Labor “parachuting Kristiana Kenneally into her electorate” that prompted Le to step up.
Responses to Le’s speech were mixed.
Legacy media didn’t know what to do with Le’s affection for faith, flag, and country, with a nervous SBS quickly steering readers away from the iconic patriotic statement—then choosing instead to use Le’s Vietnamese heritage as a reason to upsell multiculturalism.
The apparent flag-hating, hard left-leaning Sydney Morning Herald appeared as unimpressed as their readers.
Encouraged by the SMH’s (deliberate?) use of a cropped image of the áo dài, which cut out context, and created a misconception, many of them voiced disgust. They then mocked Le, saying the MP’s dress was the reason Australia needed a Republic.
In the comments section of David Crowe’s article entitled, ‘The dress that spoke louder than words,‘ one user wrote, “It reminds me of Culture Club wardrobe when Boy George was draped in US flag skirt during the US tour.”
Another user slammed Le’s speech, writing, “Perfect match. The dress was as overblown and over the top as the speech.”
One reader commented, “No doubt Pauline [Hanson] is taking note for her next “look how patriotic I am” parliamentary stunt.”
In contrast, ex-pat Israeli, Australian Rebel News roving reporter, Avi Yemini, shared part of the speech to Twitter, rightly noting: “…Dai Le, is more of a patriot than anyone else in that chamber. Today she gives Australia hope.”