Australia’s rapidly growing Indian immigrant population is demanding a public holiday for the Hindu festival of Diwali, even though it is not celebrated by 97% of the population.
But Hindu Council of Australia president Sai Paravastu said Diwali, which fell on October 31 this year, should be recognised as a public holiday or long weekend because “Hindus have come from 32 plus countries to Australia and call Australia home”.
“This would give (others) an opportunity to use the one day off to understand what these people are doing and they can visit our temples to see what we do,” he said.
“It gives them the opportunity to understand us more.”
“In the last two decades, the whole of Australia has fallen in love with Diwali”
That’s what Andrew Charlton, Labor MP and chair of the Parliamentary Friends of India, has said as he marked October as Hindu Heritage Month 👇 pic.twitter.com/EharBNeP9z
— auspill (@aus_pill) October 31, 2024
Swati Sharma, an Indian living in Melbourne who has started a parliamentary petition on the issue, told Nine News there should be a public holiday to “recognise that Indians are a big part of the population”.
“They make a public holiday for the AFL and they wanted to make a public holiday if the Matildas made the finals,” she said.
There were already more than 846,000 India-born people living in Australia by June 2023, according to the latest official statistics, up from 754,000 in 2022, and after another 16 months of record immigration that number is likely to have surpassed one million.
In 2013 those born in India were just 1.6% of the population, doubling in 10 years to 3.2% after an increase of 467,000 people.
At the time of the 2021 Census there were 684,002 Hindus in Australia, 2.7% of the population.
On the occasion of Diwali, I thank the many Australians of Hindu faith for your contributions to your communities and our country in many fields of endeavour.
I wish you happiness in the company of family, friends and neighbours as you pray, exchange gifts and enjoy meals… pic.twitter.com/Yv3n5n2b61
— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) October 31, 2024
Andrew Charlton, Labor MP for Parramatta where Australians are now a small minority, falsely claimed in parliament earlier this month that “Australia has fallen in love with Diwali” and said the holiday should be recognised in the Australian annual Calendar.
Dr Charlton regularly panders to the Indian voting bloc in his electorate on social media, and wished his followers a “happy Diwali” on Thursday along with a photo of himself wearing an Indian garland.
A globalist economist from a wealthy family, Dr Charlton sold his $16 million mansion in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and bought a home in North Parramatta just before the 2022 federal election after being selected over local candidates by Labor powerbrokers.
In March this he and his barrister wife bought a $12 million oceanside home in the exclusive Northern Beaches suburb of Palm Beach, 50km away from the electorate he represents.
At the time of the 2021 Census, the Parramatta electoral division had 203,278 residents, of whom 38.2% were born in Australia, and just 11.6% said they had Australian ancestry. 15,4% claimed Indian ancestry, while Hinduism was the largest religion on 19.9%.
Palm Beach was 73.9% Australian-born, followed by 7.6% born in England, 2.7% in New Zealand, and 1.6% in the USA, and was home to just four Hindus. Not a single person was born in India, although seven had both parents born there.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition leader Peter Dutton both posted messages for Diwali which provoked hundreds of angry responses.
Wishing a happy Festival of Lights to all those celebrating over the coming days. pic.twitter.com/7cAphPD2Cp
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) October 30, 2024
The most popular comment on Mr Albanese’s X post read: “It’s Australia, Albo. You and many others in parliament will bend over backwards to please foreigners who have come to our country. Maybe it’s time to put Australians first for once.”
On Peter Dutton wrote “On the occasion of Diwali, I thank the many Australians of Hindu faith for your contributions to your communities and our country in many fields of endeavour” but most commenters took exception.
“There’s no ‘Australians of Hindu faith’ – there’s just Indians who are stinking up our once great country to serve as cheap labour to the corporate interests you and your traitor colleagues sold our nation out to,” read the most liked.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, who  last month travelled in Delhi where she pledged $5 million to help Indian students avoid the federal government’s planned caps, along with a new loophole and pathway to permanent residency, also posted a message for the Hindu festival.
Header image: Left: Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan getting a dot painted on her head for Diwali. Right: Andrew Charlton posing with an Indian (Facebook)
