Page 110 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006
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family have been significant in their contribution over the years. It was most appropriate that the Chief Minister opened the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre which, incidentally, is the only one of its kind in the country—another thing that this government has done to push multiculturalism.
I also want the Assembly to note that the multicultural festival has broken attendance and participation records. On preliminary figures of last Saturday’s attendance, it looks like 60,000 people attended. The previous year was only 50,000. This is a 20 per cent increase. That is just phenomenal.
We will be involving the community in the development of a new multicultural strategy to be handed down in mid-2006. There is no need for me to be directed by a motion in the Assembly to table such a thing. Let me put it on the record that, when that strategy has been developed, it will be a strategy which is owned by the community and will not be a ministerial edict from on high. It will be a way forward. You can bet your life, Mr Speaker, that there will be plenty of copies of that flying around.
I cannot let an issue on multicultural affairs go by without referring to those insane remarks by Danna Vale. They were insulting in the extreme. They were divisive and bordered, in my view, on incitement. I have never heard such an insult of the Islamic community from a so-called responsible person like that. I hope I never do again. I thought that was such a shameful exercise that it put her in the same realm as some of the hysterics of Pauline Hanson. I want to say, from this government’s perspective and this community’s perspective, that we reject those sentiments entirely.
The other thing I want to do very briefly is to reflect, as I have done repeatedly recently, on the ethnic-based troubles interstate and the possibility of them happening here. We need to understand that there are people who are hell-bent on violent acts and who wander about the place looking for a reason for it. At the moment ethnicity is the reason. These people have a chip on their shoulder from something. But it is not born from the root of ethnicity; it is whipped up; it is hysteria whipped up; it is violence for violence sake.
Fortunately in the ACT, we do not have little blocks of ethnic cultures in given suburbs. We cannot say, “This is where the Italians live; this is where the Croats live; this is where the Greeks live; this is where the Asians live.” We do not. As a consequence, the young people in fact associate predominately with all manner of different cultures in their schooling and in their recreational activities—much more so, I believe—than in any other state in this country and, indeed, any other city overseas. We have an inclusive society which starts with the kids and works its way upwards.
As a result, this abhorrence that played itself out at Cronulla can be seen for what it is. It has its roots in violent behaviour and in people finding an excuse to be violent. When you mix that inherent need that these animals, in my belief, have with alcohol and testosterone, you are going to get an explosion. We notice that it has not happened in Perth; it has not happened in Darwin; it has not happened in Adelaide; and it certainly has not happened here. I do not believe that it will.
I wish also to affirm here, in the context of multiculturalism, one of the things I have observed in this town, which has been fantastic, and that is the way in which other
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