Page 2757 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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Just the other day I had another ministerial forum with the Europeans. As I mentioned in this place, there were 35 different groups and 45 different people at the forum. It is not just ordinary people that come to these forums; the community leaders also come. The forums are meant to build on the previous forums that we had last year and the summit and to give us feedback.
Curiously, what came out of that—and I was actually very pleased about this—was that the smaller and emerging communities called upon us to address certain issues: young people’s issues, women’s issues, elderly people’s issues, access and equity, those sorts of issues. They will be in the draft strategy that I am about to release. Those issues emerged from that forum and the summit.
The Ministerial Advisory Council for Multicultural Affairs worked fairly well for six months and the government received some advice. It was alive for about two years. It spent the second six months fighting amongst itself. It spent the next 12 months bitterly fighting amongst itself. It provided the government with not one piece of paper, not one phone call or conversation around multicultural issues. So you have to ask yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker: why on earth you would continue with that group?
These are the very same people who have been regarded, supposedly, as leaders of the multicultural community. In fact, their membership is spread throughout the membership of the ACT Multicultural Council Inc and the new multicultural forum. It is the same people. I have to say to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that for the minute I do not need to sponsor a group that wants to fight amongst themselves. I am not interested in doing it.
I would rather walk amongst the people myself and do it. I would rather go to activities that you and I pop up at all the time and speak to the ordinary people about these things because actually it is working. How do we know it is working? It is because the document The way forward is out there, warts and all, for everybody to see. We have a draft strategy coming up and we have young people knocking our doors down to be involved.
It has been said that there is not enough money for multicultural issues in the budget. There has not been a reduction. I have gone on TV publicly and said that $276,000 for the government’s contribution to the Multicultural Festival is guaranteed. What a lot of people do not understand about the Multicultural Festival, of course, is that it exists in cash and in kind. For example, last year $100,000 came from the tradies. Typically, the CFMEU, working for the benefit of people’s families and family life, used some of the money they get from the tradies club. That was a fantastic contribution. The Hellenic Club threw in a couple of quid. Some embassies brought in stuff. The Chinese embassy was brilliant. It sent the China Disabled People’s Performing Arts Troupe last time. It was great.
We need to understand the context of the festival. It is not just the government putting it on for the people of Canberra. It is, in fact, the multicultural people of Canberra putting it on with assistance from the government. That is the truth of it all. The Multicultural Fringe Festival is going to be in Civic Square, right here. I understand that moving the fringe festival to here—I might not have the numbers exactly right—saved the production $27,000.
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