AUSTRALIA DAY | Celebrate Australia's diversity

It was my pleasure to be an Australia Day Ambassador again, this year in Liverpool City Council. Below is my Australia Day address.

Hi everyone, it’s great to be here in Liverpool to help celebrate Australia Day, and to welcome some new Australian citizens to this wonderful community.

I’d like to would like to show my respect and acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land, of Elders past and present, on which we are meeting today.

What I want to talk to you about today, is embracing your cultural heritage, because for me, Australia Day is about celebrating our nation’s diversity.

So my family’s story isn’t very different to many of you here today.

They migrated from the Portuguese island of Madeira in the very late 1970s - in search of a better life.

If you were to drill a hole underneath Sydney, through the centre of the earth, you’d come out on the other side of the world in the Atlantic Ocean between Madeira and another set of Portuguese islands called The Azores. 

So, my family could not have travelled from a further place in the world to get to Australia.

They settled on the New South Wales South Coast in the city of Wollongong, which is very similar to Liverpool, in that they are both very multicultural communities.

Dad worked at the steelworks, mum at Bonds.

My brother and I were born in Wollongong and both my parents often worked double shifts or two jobs to give us the opportunities they didn’t have.

Despite being born here, Portuguese was my first language, because my parents were only starting to learn English. 

So by the time I started school, most of the English that I had learned, was from television. Play School, Sesame Street, and the Young and the Restless.

It was then, the teachers at my Primary school started calling me Richard instead of Ricardo.

I don’t really know why, and my parents didn’t question it.

So I became Richard Goncalves, (Pronounced Gon-Calves) for more than 20 years.

Mind you, that didn’t stop me from being an ethnic kid. I still spoke Portuguese at home, I did Portuguese Folkloric Dancing, I ate salami sandwhiches at school, polenta and Portuguese Custard Tarts at home, and went to church.

In high school, I knew that journalism, particularly television journalism was my passion.

While I never used my ethnicity as an excuse, I think part of me was conscious that opportunities may be limited because of my look.

Back in the 1990s, television news journalists and presenters were mostly white and Anglo-Saxon.

So maybe subconsciously I thought, being Richard, instead of Ricardo might help me get ahead in a cut throat industry.

When I left university, I had a number of jobs at organisations like Win News, Seven News, Nine News, and Sky News, always as Richard.

When I applied for a job at SBS,I was asked by management if Richard or Ricardo was my real name.

I got the job, and given I was going to work for an organisation which is all about diversity and inclusion with an emphasis on multiculturalism, I decided to revert to my name, Ricardo, and the correct pronunciation of my surname, Goncalves.

I didn’t have to change my name to get the job, but I felt, that if I’m going to be a champion of diversity, then I would have to walk the talk.

Still, looking back, I don’t feel my name, nor look had a part in my successes.

I feel I became successful because of my hard work, passion and dedication to telling good news stories.

The reality is though, people are sometimes threatened by what is perceived as a little different.

We still see it in commercial media.

While we live in a tolerant and welcoming society, sometimes, people of migrant backgrounds have to work that little bit harder.

I implore you to take that on as a challenge, and not as a hindrance - and the good news is - attitudes are changing.

We already know that migrants and refugees are greater risk takers which is why one third of all small businesses in Australia are run by people whose first language isn’t English.

So we already know that migrants are extremely hard working - and are contributing to society by creating opportunities in small business - which is the backbone of Australia’s economy.

I know that because I also host Small Business Secrets on SBS - every Sunday at 7am and 5pm and anytime on SBS On Demand.

In the corporate space, organisations recognise that diversity in all its forms, nationality, gender, age and sexuality encourages diversity of thought, and greater knowledge, which ultimately improves their bottom line.

Like the citizenship pledge says, being Australian is about respecting the rights and liberties of all Australians today.

And it’s wonderful to have seen that respect of rights and liberties extended recently with the yes vote on same sex marriage.

So I encourage you to celebrate your differences, show all of us what makes you unique, because ultimately it’s not where you come from that makes you Australian.

What makes you Australian, is who you are on the inside, and the way you uphold the democratic beliefs of all Australians.

Happy Australia Day