Australia’s finance minister Mathias Cormann came to Australia in the mid-90s to meet his girlfriend’s parents in Perth.
Although that relationship didn’t last, the law graduate was hooked on Western Australia.
"The blue sky, the beaches, the weather: all of that was very exciting," he says.
"I came here in July so that was the Australian winter yet for somebody coming here from Belgium, it may as well have been a European summer, so it was fantastic."
After a second holiday – this time during a real Australian summer and his first Christmas without snow – he decided to eventually make Western Australia his home.
Mr Cormann after he arrived in Australia. Source: Supplied
It was a big move for the Belgian boy who had spent most of his life in a country less than half the size of Tasmania.
The farthest he’d been was on a law studies exchange at East Anglia University in Norwich, England where he also learned English - his fourth language after Flemish, German and French.
Australia was to his mind a place of crocodiles, sharks, bushfires, and adventure.
"When I came to Australia essentially I had come across all of that perception, but obviously it’s much more sophisticated and much more developed place than you might have perceived back in 1994 coming from Europe," he says.
Enjoying Australia's coastline. Source: Supplied
Politics
Mathias Cormann worked as a gardener before he found his way to the Liberal Party.
He'd tried his hand in local politics in Belgium and worked for a member of the European Parliament.
So after starting as a volunteer for the WA Liberal Party, he quickly found work with state and federal Liberal politicians including then Premier Richard Court as chief of staff and then advisor in 1996 shortly after migrating to Australia.
On Australia Day 2000, he became an Australian citizen.
Were you born overseas? We'd love to hear about your first impression of Australia as a new migrant. Contact us on sbsnews@sbs.com.au or via Twitter @SBSNews using the hashtag #FirstDaySBS
Seven years later he would become an Australian senator after he was given retiring Senator Ian Campbell’s seat. He won it in his own right at the 2010 election.
His office boasts a sweeping view of Perth’s Swan River and Kings Park. Framed Tintin prints are on the wall as well as photos of his first day in Parliament and a landscape photo of Jerusalem.
Australia, he says, had been good to a Belgian migrant.
At home with his daughter, Charlotte, in 2015. Source: Supplied
"Australia’s an amazing country that way," he says.
"Australia’s fundamentally a country developed by migrants from all corners of the world and what I found is that if you enthusiastically join the team, and you give it your best, there’s no limit to what you can achieve.
"That is part of the secret of Australia's success as a country where we have been able bring people from all parts of the world together into a very harmonious community and taking advantage of everything that everyone can bring to the project that is Australia."
Senator Cormann married Perth lawyer Hayley Ross and they recently welcomed their second daughter Charlotte last December, a sister to their first daughter Isabelle.
The Cormann family will join hundreds of thousands of their fellow West Australians along the banks of the Swan River to celebrate Australia Day as they have done nearly every year since the Belgian boy became a West Australian man.
This story was produced as part of the SBS series, First Day, airing on SBS World News throughout January.
