Highlights
- Sam Lim was the first person sworn into federal parliament on Buddhist scriptures as well as just the second Malaysian-born MP.
- Mr Lim said he was still adjusting to the new role as an MP from his previous incarnation as an award-winning WA police officer.
- Mr Lim had an impoverished childhood but was raised in a loving and harmonious multicultural social environment.
“I’ve been to Canberra three times, and I still get lost in Parliament House,” Sam Lim, the newly minted MP for the seat of Tangney in WA, told SBS in mid-July 2022.
Mr Lim is the second Malaysian-born MP, after Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who was elected to the Senate for South Australia in 2001.
And he became the first person to be sworn into federal parliament on Buddhist scriptures, in his case the Dhammapada.
Fitting into the new role
The former police officer expressed that he was still “fitting himself” into the new role of a Member of Parliament.
“Being an MP is harder than being a police officer for me,” Mr Lim said.
Mr Lim will give his Maiden Speech to Parliament in September this year, according to his electoral office.
He sat down in his new electoral office in Perth and shared his feelings about being the representative for the division of Tangney, which covers some of the capital city’s affluent southern suburbs.
“Too much workload and one MP is not enough,” he said.
Sam Lim MP interview with SBS Source: SBS/ Ranky Law
Mr Lim said the workload was overwhelming, “the office will receive hundreds of emails and no matter how many you receive, you have to reply in 24 hours.”
I wish there were 30 me, and then I might be able to [do all the work].
Mr Lim told SBS that he had concerns about his new role.
“I would bring up a question if I met something, I don’t understand how to solve it … but I was concerned that I would offend people,” he said.
He said he would choose to step back in dealing with some issues and avoid making hasty decisions.
“There are a lot of very experienced MPs, knowledgeable MPs … and I would ask them a lot,” he said, “and they would listen as they never tire and teach me how to solve those problems.”
“I learned a lot, and I don’t believe I can learn all in the next 34 months [of serving].”
Experience from being a local police officer
However, Mr Lim said he was also surprised by the contribution he could provide as an MP.
He and his team had recently helped a female resident to get a new passport on the day for her child as required.
“I didn’t realise that an MP can be so functional to help to get a passport in an emergency,” he said.
His experience as a former local police officer who interacted with diverse communities had also assisted him to get into the new role of an MP, he said.
He said he planned to establish four advisory groups and recruit members of the public to facilitate connections with multicultural communities, diverse religious communities, and multi-interest groups.
WA Police officer Sam Lim has taken out top WA Police excellence award Source: provided by Sam Lim
“[I] used this kind of method to maintain the tight connections with multicultural communities when I was a police officer,” he said.
Tangney has a diverse demographic.
Apart from Australia, Malaysia is the second-most populous country of birth in Tangney, with 5.1 per cent of the population, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census. The next highest countries of birth represented are India, China, and Singapore with 4.5 per cent, 3.7 per cent, and 2.1 per cent respectively.
And Mr Lim noticed the complexity of the constitution of religion in Tangney.
“In [Tangney] region, there are a lot of different religious factions,” he explained, “[Tangney] has a lot of Muslim communities, they have very different factions; Buddhism communities have very different factions, too; and Catholics too,” Mr Lim said.
In the 2021 Census, Catholics accounted for 20.3 per cent, Anglicans accounted for 9.2 per cent, and Buddhism accounted for 4.4 per cent in Tangney.
An impoverished yet happy childhood
Mr Lim says he has fond memories of his birth country, Malaysia, recalling the harmonious society in which he was raised.
His family lived in a small village, which was made up of a mix of Chinese and Malay families. It was this mix of cultures that he says had contributed most to his positive notion of multiculturalism.
Despite experiencing struggles due to poverty, Mr Lim says he had a loving family.
West Australian Labor MP Sam Lim Source: SBS/ Helen Chen
“My parents were rubber tappers, which means we 'depended on heaven for food',” he explains, recalling that they would have no income when it rained because the downfalls suspended rubber tapping.
“Sometimes, we had no food.”
He says it was at such times that a neighbouring Malay Muslim family would often take him into their home and offer food, “… so I learned how to eat with (my) hand [as Muslims do] in an early age".
He also acquired his Malay language skills from the same family.
This family not only provided him with food and shelter when torrential rain hit but also bought Mr Lim a school uniform.
Mr Lim says he was also supported by a Catholic teacher to enter secondary school.
“The teacher knew I couldn't afford the tuition fee, so he told me to keep going, and they will take care of it,” Mr Lim says.
“So, not only do I owe a debt of gratitude to the Muslims, but I also owe a great debt of gratitude to the Catholics.”
Because of the scarcity of educational resources in Malaysia, Mr Lim says he decided to migrate to Australia for a better educational opportunity for his three children.
"We (as parents) have to go along with kids and accompany them as they grow up,” he said.
Now, his kids had their own life in Australia, and Mr Lim believed he had the right decision.
