ADJOURNMENT

Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Leader of the Nationals) (17:32): I want to spend a short period this evening thanking and recognising the great contribution of the Yazidi community to our country, particularly a section of that community from Coffs Harbour who travelled to Canberra last week to meet some members of parliament, including myself, and recount to us some of their life stories, which are harrowing and difficult but promising too, given the promise that Australia has offered these refugees for a fresh start to their life and new hope.

They are great Australians. I want to thank the member for Cowper, Pat Conaghan, who helped organise this delegation and who I met with. They came at this time of year because it was in August 2014 when some of the most horrific and barbaric attacks ever inflicted on people on this earth were conducted by the ISIS caliphate against a minority group of people which we know as the Yazidi people.

The Yazidi people are a proud people that share a relatively unique religious belief, and that has caused them, as a minority group, to be subject to bouts of persecution over their history. This persecution though, this genocide that occurred 12 years ago, was perhaps the greatest and most severe that they'd ever experienced. Again, I do want to thank the honesty and bravery of those who came to Canberra, including Hadiya, Milan, Ilyas, Tamar, Ibrahim, Bahin and Murad.

They recounted to me their personal experience. It wasn't third-hand. They witnessed many of these atrocities themselves: the kidnapping of men and boys; the forced conscription of many of them into caliphate units, military units; and the sexual abuse of women and girls.

And, of course, many people lost their lives as well. There have, in fact, been over 1,300 confirmed deaths as a result of this genocide and almost 2½ thousand orphaned children. There have been 96 mass graves discovered to date, and 120,000 Yazidis have had to emigrate abroad as a result of this persecution.

Australia should be proud that we are a welcoming country to people who face persecution such as this. We have taken in over 4,000 refugees from the Yazidi community, and many have made the northern New South Wales coast their home. I know the people of Coffs Harbour have welcomed them there, and they are making great contributions now to our country.

They came to Canberra for that recognition. I want to place that on our parliamentary record tonight and affirm the Australian government's recognition of this genocide. But they also had some humble requests for us as well.

They are requesting and seeking some relief on the migration of family members to Australia. I know there are heightened concerns about migration in this country, but, in my view, we must maintain a humanitarian program for those that are persecuted overseas. We can do that while still maintaining a responsible migration program, as we have clearly done in this case with this community and many other persecuted communities in our history.

So I think that request should be considered strongly by the Australian government. Likewise, while they spoke glowingly of their new country of Australia, which they now call their home, they are concerned themselves about the rise of Islamic extremism that they were on the receiving end of so brutally 12 years ago. They're concerned about the rise of that here.

They particularly were concerned about the entry of so-called ISIS brides or what have become known as ISIS brides. The very people who participated in and were associated with their persecution are now coming back to Australia. Understandably, then, they have heightened concerns about that.

Once again, given their persecution, given their contribution to this country, given that they are now one of us and part of our country, they deserve those concerns to be listened to. But, overall, I do want to thank them for the bravery they have to go through experiences like that and be able to come out the other side and participate fully as they do, come to their nation's parliament, speak so eloquently and speak so highly of the strength of their community and their peoples.

I thank them for coming to Canberra and sharing their experiences again.