Letter to Senator the Hon Penny Wong: Support for Representation of Hongkonger Heritage at the Museum of Chinese in Australia (2025-04-30)
Senator the Hon Penny Wong
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Level 4
19 Gouger Street
Adelaide, SA, 5000
30 April 2025
Support for Representation of Hongkonger Heritage at the Museum of Chinese in Australia
Dear Senator Wong,
We write collectively as representatives of various Hongkonger community groups in Australia to express our gratitude and appreciation for your recent pledge of $2.6 million toward the Museum of Chinese in Australia (MOCA), contingent upon your party forming government. Your announcement, which we learned about through MOCA’s recent Instagram post, brings considerable hope and excitement to our communities.
We are genuinely delighted by your strong support for MOCA, an institution that promises to play a vital role in preserving, celebrating, and sharing the diverse stories and contributions of Chinese Australians—hopefully including those of Hongkonger heritage—with the broader Australian public. Your recognition of the importance of community histories affirms the value of our experiences in Australia’s rich multicultural landscape.
As MOCA continues its development, we respectfully hope that the history of Hongkongers in Australia will be authentically and prominently represented. Historically, Hong Kong has been recorded separately in the Australian census since Federation, reflecting its unique role as the primary departure point for early Chinese migrants beginning with the Australian gold rush in the 1850s. Following the easing of immigration laws in the late 1960s, Hong Kong became the primary source of Chinese migration to Australia through the 1980s, highlighting its longstanding and distinctive role in shaping early Chinese Australian communities.
Between 1984 and 1996, more than 75,000 migrants from Hong Kong arrived in Australia, making Hong Kong the largest source of skilled Asian migration at that time. Key historical events, such as the military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in China in 1989, Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997, and the recent passage of the National Security Law in Hong Kong in 2020, triggered new waves of migration to Australia. These migrants, including many students, businesspeople, and professionals, have contributed extensively to Australia's economic and social development.
While Australian census data record statistics for Hong Kong-born individuals and Cantonese speakers at home, neither fully captures the true size and complexity of the Hongkonger population in Australia. The 2021 census in Hong Kong revealed that only 61.7 percent of its population was Hong Kong-born. Additionally, only 78.8 percent of the Hong Kong-born population in Australia use Cantonese at home. Australia's 2021 census, capturing only the beginning of the recent immigration surge, shows that Cantonese has risen to become the fourth most commonly used language at home other than English, used by over 295,000 people. In 2021, there were over 100,000 Hong Kong-born individuals in Australia, predominantly residing in New South Wales and Victoria.
Despite these significant contributions, the experiences and history of Hongkongers have not always been distinctly represented within broader Chinese Australian narratives. Past exhibitions, such as those at the Chinese Museum in Melbourne, have often overlooked Hong Kong’s role as a major source of Chinese migration.
We therefore respectfully encourage your support and advocacy to ensure that MOCA authentically acknowledges the Hongkonger story as an integral part of the broader Chinese Australian experience. We believe that representing the multiple factors—including political ones—that have shaped migration, along with the diverse experiences of the Hong Kong diaspora, among them exile for some, will greatly enrich the museum’s offerings and more fully reflect Australia's rich cultural diversity.
The Hongkonger community stands ready to actively engage with and contribute to MOCA’s development, offering community knowledge and oral histories to support an inclusive and authentic representation of our shared heritage.
Thank you once again for your leadership and commitment to Australia's vibrant multicultural society.
Yours sincerely,
(Yee-man Nip)
President, Metaverse Hong Kong Incorporated
(Jane Poon)
Australia-Hong Kong Link Pty Ltd
Victoria Hongkongers Association (Australia) Inc.