National Liaison Committee for International Students (NLC), the national peak body for International Students in Australia, together with Ethnic Communities Council of Western Australia (ECCWA), the peak body for Multicultural Community in Western Australia, co-sponsored the memorial service for the late Hon Sam PIANTADOSI.

On 1 August 2010, NLC and ECCWA held the memorial service for the late Hon Sam PIANTADOSI at the Perth Town Hall.

The memorial service was attended by Multicultural Community Leaders and politicians, and filled with multicultural performances, multimedia presentations and tribute speeches to honour the life of the late Hon Sam PIANTADOSI and his contributions to the Multicultural Community.

Mr SHANG J. Master, NLC Public Officer, who the late Hon Sam PIANTADOSI mentored over 20 years ago when Mr SHANG was national president of Chinese Students Association (CSA) in the late 80s and early 90s, said in his tribute speech that he would carry on the spirit and torch passed on to him by the late Hon Sam PIANTADOSI to continue to lead the fight for the Multicultural Community.

The Multicultural Community is 20% of the population of Australia, and deserve fair share of representation. With NLC as the future leadership platform, International Student leaders and Multicultural Youth leaders are being nurtured to take up the leadership role.

The following is the Condolence Motion passed by the Hon. Norman MOORE in the WA Legislative Council on 23 March 2010:

“Without notice: I move —

That this house expresses its deep regret at the death of Hon Sam Piantadosi, a former member of the Legislative Council for the North Central Metropolitan province and for the North Metropolitan Region; places on record its appreciation for his long public service; and tenders its profound sympathy to his wife and members of his family in their bereavement.

Sam Piantadosi has the distinction of being the first Italian-born, postwar migrant elected to the Parliament of Western Australia, but he will be equally remembered as a dedicated supporter of a range of community organisations that together strengthen our social capital. His community service continued undiminished after he left Parliament, and in recent years he returned to elected office as a councillor and Deputy Mayor of the Town of Bassendean.

Sam Piantadosi was born in April 1946 in the rural town of Roccabescerano in the Italian province of Avellino, part of the Campania region south of Rome. In 1952 his family migrated to Western Australia, and he grew up in Northbridge. He was educated at St Brigid’s Primary School, West Perth; Christian Brothers College, Highgate; and Leederville Technical College. He worked as an accounts clerk and office manager for 12 years. His career was interrupted by two years’ national service from 1966 to 1968.

After 1976 Sam’s career path diverted into full-time involvement with the trade union movement, commencing as ethnic coordinator of the Water Supply Union. In 1979 he became secretary of that union. From 1981 to 1983, he was president of the Hospital Services and Miscellaneous Workers Union—an amalgamation of several smaller unions. He was the founding convenor of the Trades and Labor Council’s Migrant Workers Committee and a director of the United Credit Union from 1977 to 1985. Having joined the Australian Labor Party in 1968, he was an active office holder in its inner city branches and was a member of its state executive after 1976.

Sam had a deep commitment to the welfare of the Italian community and to migrants generally, and leaves a fine record of service. In 1979 he was the founding secretary of the North Perth Migrant Resource Centre, and he was a member of its management committee from 1980 to 1986. He was a member of the State Advisory Panel for Interpreters and Translators between 1979 and 1981, and a member of the Consultative Committee for Italian Affairs and Welfare in 1980. In 1982 and 1983 Sam was the founding chairman of the Ethnic Communities
Council of Western Australia. He had a strong involvement in sport over 24 years from the age of 12, beginning with the Azzuri Rugby Club
and continuing with four successive soccer clubs: Azzuri, Victoria Park, Rosemount Juventus and Bayswater.

In 1983 Sam Piantadosi was chosen by the Australian Labor Party to contest the newly created North Central Metropolitan Province of the Legislative Council, consisting of the Assembly seats of Balga, Balcatta, Nollamara and Mt Lawley. He had a convincing win, gaining a majority of 11 500 votes in a poll of 57 400 votes. In the Mt Lawley seat, which included North Perth, he polled well ahead of his party’s Legislative Assembly vote.

None of the 250 MLCs who had preceded Sam in the Legislative Council possessed a surname of Italian or ethnic origin. Sam was not permitted to give his inaugural speech in Italian, but he had achieved a notable step for his community. Subsequently with the introduction of proportional representation for the Legislative Council in 1989, Sam was elected as the third member of the ALP team for the North Metropolitan Region. In 1983 he was re-elected from the second position on his party’s ticket. As a member of the Legislative Council for over 13 years, he served successively on the Joint Printing Committee, the Standing Committee on Estimates and Financial Operations, the Joint House Committee and the standing orders committee.

Sam’s community work continued with the North Perth Multicultural Service Centre, his chairmanship of the Stirling Ethnic Aged Homes Project, and general support for migrant communities. Appropriately, Sam was honoured with the Friends of Overseas Chinese medal in 1991, the gold medal for services to the Italian community overseas and the order of merit knighthood from the Italian government.

In April 1996 Sam left the Australian Labor Party to become an Independent and in November he resigned as an MLC six months before the expiry of his term in order to contest the Yokine seat in the Legislative Assembly.

These would not have been easy decisions, but Sam Piantadosi was a man of strong convictions. He polled over 1 100 votes in this strongly contested seat.

After leaving Parliament, Sam founded his own business, Eurasia Trade and Management Services, in 1999 and continued assisting people as a justice of the peace and a member of such community organisations as the Italian Club and the Macedonian United Society of WA. From 1999 to 2002 he was secretary of the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and he was subsequently a committee member of the International Business Council of WA.

To quote the death notice submitted by Mr Ramdas Sankaran of the Multicultural Services Centre of WA —

Sam unhesitatingly stood up for … socially disadvantaged, regardless of their ethnicity, faith, gender etc and he was a trailblazer in the multicultural sector. Sam was just as keen to address systemic issues as he was in assisting individuals, and those efforts have made our society a more fair and equitable one. The strength and determination of his advocacy for ethnic minorities are unparalleled and he was a
leader in every sense of the word.

To serve his local community of Eden Hill, in 2007 Sam Piantadosi was comfortably elected to the North Ward of the Town of Bassendean. While many members have entered Parliament with local government experience, comparatively few choose to stand in local elections after leaving Parliament. It is a measure of Sam’s community involvement that his public service took place on smaller as well as larger stages.

On behalf of the government, we express our sympathy at Sam’s premature passing to his wife, Angelika, to his son, Samuel Louis, to his son’s partner, Colleen, and to his father, Salvatore.”