Harry's Adelaide link stands test of time

Harry Hua shares more than a name with Harry Medlin.

The pair has a bond stretching back more than 25 years through their association with the University of Adelaide.

A boat refugee from Vietnam, Mr Hua arrived in Adelaide in 1977 and was barely able to speak English when he commenced a Civil Engineering qualification at the South Australian Institute of Technology at Salisbury.

"My English was very poor when I first arrived, and I didn't think I was going to get into university," Mr Hua said.

"But I worked hard at it and I was lucky enough to get into Adelaide to study Electronic Engineering in 1979. I was also working night-shift at Kelvinator to earn some money to send to my family back home."

It was in his first year at Adelaide that he met Dr Medlin in circumstances neither is likely to forget.

"Harry (Hua) came to my room and told me his story - and then he burst into tears, and told me he that he had just heard that one of his younger brothers was being held in a refugee camp in Malaysia," Dr Medlin said.

"Harry wanted my advice about what he could do. I knew the then Foreign Minister Michael MacKellar was going to Malaysia within days, and I contacted him and he promised that he would do what he could.

"Ten days later, Harry and his brother came to my room to say thank you! I was staggered - it was the quickest political response I had ever seen!"

Mr Hua has since settled - along with many members of his family - in the Victorian region of Sale where he has become a leading figure in the local community. Along with his eldest son Alex, he recently visited Adelaide and caught up with Dr Medlin. Alex is a talented mathematician and musician who is now in Year 12 and will soon have to choose which university to attend.

None of Mr Hua's achievements in Australia would have been possible, he said, without the help of the University of Adelaide.

"I am still very emotional about it," he said. "Harry Medlin helped to bring my brother to Australia, and in addition to this, I got sick in my final year of studying Adelaide.

"I had to have an operation at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and Tony Parker (now Deputy Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Maths and Computer Science) came to visit me while I was in the hospital recovering.

"I was very touched by those gestures, and I will always be very grateful to the university for the opportunities it gave me to start my new life in Australia."

Story by Ben Osborne