Pirates, police, parliament: Trung Luu's refugee story
20 June 2024
By the time Trung Luu arrived in Australia, he had survived war, pirate attacks, a sinking ship and a refugee camp. He was just five years old.
‘Dad and all his brothers were helping the army, the Americans and the Australians,’ he says.
‘My uncles were high ranking officers, so after the fall of Saigon they were captured and put in the reeducation camp. But dad was only a private so he wasn’t held as long. As soon as he got out of the prison camp in 1979 we fled Vietnam.’
When he entered Parliament at the 2022 election he recounted his story during his inaugural speech.
‘I was hustled in the middle of the night by my parents onto a boat in the harbour of Cà Mau on the southern coast of Vietnam. Overcrowded and packed like sardines, the boat made its way out to sea,’ he told the Legislative Council.
“ ‘We were grateful because we arrived here with nothing and dad managed to get a job. We had our freedom and we managed to live a life with opportunities.’ ”
Trung Luu, Member for Western Metropolitan
That boat would be attacked by pirates, the refugees lost all of their possessions and drifted for another seven days, enduring multiple boardings from sea pirates while they tried to find safe harbour.
When they finally made landfall in Malaysia, the Malaysian Coast Guard towed them back out to sea.
But as their boat began to sink Trung Luu’s father leapt with him into the water and swam to shore. They had made it to safety, but their fate was still far from certain.
The family was sent to a refugee camp with little more than tarpaulins for shelter, communal showers and open pit latrines.
As a couple with a small child Trung’s parents were priortised for settlement in Australia and after ‘six or seven months’ the family was bound for Sydney.
‘We were lucky. My uncle was stuck there for a couple of years. So we were fortunate.’
The family eventually settled in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs where Trung’s parents acquired factory jobs.
The family lived in a two bedroom flat that also housed Trung’s grandmother, uncle, aunt and their three children.
‘We were grateful because we arrived here with nothing and dad managed to get a job. We had our freedom and we managed to live a life with opportunities,’ he says.
Those opportunities allowed Trung to eventually complete a civil engineering degree, followed by a long career as a Forensic Investigation Crime Scene Officer with Victoria Police before entering parliament at the 2022 election.
‘I always go back to what JFK said, “what can you do for your country”. So that's why I think I've gone down the path of community service.’