Australia is a nation of immigrants, of people making new lives in a new land.
The story of the early years of European colonisation was predicated on England wanting to move its undesirable criminal class out of its bursting prisons on to somewhere far, far away.
And so those first journeys were from the Old Bailey to the prison hulks moored on the Thames to these convicts' months-long voyage to Botany Bay.
Running beside that story in the many decades that followed, of course, was the dispossession and brutal mistreatment of Australia's first people. In many ways, they say, nothing has changed.
Nevertheless, so much of the migrant experience has been a tremendous tale of renewal, diversity and enrichment.
We would not be the dynamic nation we are today without it, without taking in the dispossessed who have added infinitely to the Australian experience.
It is this though that has made the "debate" over recent years on immigration such an unnecessarily divisive, ignorant and dog-whistling distraction, exacerbated by those who wish to impose their prejudices on fair-minded Australians for their own political advantage.
Racism continues to thrive, as it does in all communities with such diversity. But the incredibly more common experience of new Australians being embraced and being encouraged to add their words to this story is not so well known.
This week, La Trobe University Bendigo pharmacy alumnus Yong Deng braved the national spotlight to help highlight the ways in which South Sudanese Australians experience racism.
"It's not about whining... If we're going to live cohesively as a society we need to know what affects other people," Mr Deng said.
By speaking out on the television show Taboo, Mr Deng hoped to change the perceptions of those who might view South Sudanese people negatively.
His is a remarkable journey.
And it so clearly tells us we must never close our doors or indeed our hearts to refugees.
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