AS Griffith residents vote in the state election, The Area News decided to take a look back at a former Member for Murrumbidgee who became known as the “father of multiculturalism”.
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AL Grassby, who was elected as member of the NSW Legislative Assembly for the electorate of Murrumbidgee in 1965, literally wore his politics on his sleeve – one that, often as not, was part of a purple or gold safari suit.
Or, if the suit was conventional, there would be a wild tie.
Grassby's policies began the transformation of an Anglo-centric, or at least Euro-centric Australia, to one that welcomed Asians and people from every part of the globe.
When they got here, they were no longer pressed into jettisoning every bit of their culture to "assimilate" into the mainstream Anglo-Celtic community.
Grassby initiated reforms to help immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds. Among them, he helped gain the right to remain in Australia for overseas students who had successfully completed their studies and were sought by an Australian employer.
He allowed the parents of Australian-born children to remain in Australia, and he granted assisted passage to Vietnamese orphans coming to Australia, then to orphans from any country.
He introduced non-discriminatory procedures for the selection of migrants and the issue of tourist visas, and began to extend the infrastructure of education and support for migrants within Australia.
Grassby lost his seat of Riverina in the 1974 election, a defeat he put down to racist elements campaigning against him. But there was no counteracting his influence.
Whitlam made him the first Commissioner for Community Relations, and he had a big role in overseeing the introduction of the pioneering Racial Discrimination Act of 1975.
Grassby got to Griffith in a roundabout way. He was born in Brisbane in 1926 to an Irish mother who married a Spaniard from Chile. The family took off around the world in the 1930s, but Grassby's father was killed in a German air raid on London.
Grassby went to university in England, trained in journalism and served in the British Army Infantry and Intelligence Corps for the last two years of the war.
He returned to Australia in 1948 as a "ten quid migrant", sponsored by an aunt, and soon moved to Griffith, becoming an information officer for the CSIRO.
Much of his work involved helping Italian farmers, and he went to Italy for a year to learn the language. His pro-Italian sympathies led him to become involved in the backwash over the Mafia-linked killing of Donald Mackay in 1977.
Al Grassby, who had been treated for cancer, died on April April 2005, two days after suffering a heart attack, after several months' pneumonia.