Page 2759 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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example, the southern Baptist preachers from America—be taught about Australian values.
I am sure members will remember the Vietnam War era, when Buddhist monks were self-immolating. That is not exactly part of Australian culture, but do not insist that Buddhist monks that come into Australia receive this education. The Muslims are being singled out, and I have a problem with that. Right now we need the Muslim Advisory Council. I am hoping that, in a year or so, we will not need it any more because everything will be sweet. I am hoping. Call me an optimist if you like.
In your speech, Mr Deputy Speaker, you referred to the Mandir temple. The Mandir temple did not receive any support because we only give support during the grant rounds, whether they are for multicultural radio, multicultural grants or ethnic school grants. There is a process and each of the communities competes in that process. It is as simple as that. In fact, it was probably the worst time of the year for someone to apply for these funds. I put out a press release earlier today—to be sure that I was here before I take some leave—calling for applications for grants under the ethnic grants program, the radio programs, et cetera. It will be in the paper either tomorrow or on the weekend or whenever. Now is the time for those communities to be talking to the Office of Multicultural Affairs about what largesse they can get their hands on.
I want to talk about funding for the ACT Multicultural Council and why I did not give it to the multicultural forum. As far as I was concerned the ACT Multicultural Council did not adhere to the conditions of their grant. They did not deliver the goods that they were asked to deliver. We had to get an Auditor-General’s report into their activities. It would have been irresponsible of me to hand over $67,000 to an organisation like that. No-one knew what we were getting for our money.
It would also have been inappropriate for me to pick a brand new organisation with absolutely no runs on the board, do exactly the same thing and leave them to their fate. This year I decided to take the results out of the summit, get the major things people wanted to know about and project fund it. So we will do seven different projects this coming year to do with women, young people, access and equity and language. There are a couple more that escape me at the moment, and I apologise for that.
This is the responsible thing to do in the multicultural community. We will go out there and give the money to the community itself. We will get the multicultural community to bid for that money and to tell us exactly what they want. I will not allow a select bunch of people, politically appointed, either by me or by numbers that they have been able to crunch themselves, to highjack that resource for the multicultural community. I am not talking about Labor versus Liberal here. If anybody suggests that, they are wrong. What we are talking about is the politics of self-interest, and I will not have that in a multicultural community because that is a divisive way of doing things. It is not a uniting way of doing things.
If, on the other hand, over the next year or so we find that either or both of the communities seem to get their acts together, the government will revisit how it is going to deal with those funds. But at the moment I have no confidence in one, and the other has not quite made it yet for us to go down that track. I do know what the community wants because the community told me. They told me at the forums and they told me at
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