Page 3882 - Week 12 - Thursday, 30 October 2014
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There was a keenness to talk about the issues. One thing was to do something about it. What will come out of this symposium this morning? Many recognised that everyone did a bit to help others. That will help create the cohesion of the community that we want. The importance of individuals’ conversations was a key to how we lead the way; there is always something that individuals can do. There was very much a conversation about how we engage with those that are isolated within our community or the youth of our community and how we get to know each other a bit better. Whilst there was a strong focus on our Muslim community, we certainly reflected that any of our multicultural community can always, or may, feel isolated or excluded from our society and we need to make sure that we continue to keep an eye on that. And it was about respecting the dignity of difference being quite vital. There was certainly a sense of “how do we create a more open and consistent dialogue?” that came from today, and there are opportunities to do that.
I want to put on record my appreciation for Karen Middleton from SBS, who did an outstanding job this morning. I also thank the federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Tim Soutphommasane, for his presentation this morning. And of course there was the good work of the panel members. There was John Gunn from Multicultural Youth Services; Kerrie Heath, the principal of Dickson College; Superintendent Kath Grassick from ACT Policing; Dean Kahn from the Canberra Interfaith Forum; Azra Khan from the Canberra Islamic Centre; and young Canberrans Adongwot Manyoul and Ahmad Henricks.
I would also like to thank the Chief Minister, the attorney, Jeremy Hanson and Shane Rattenbury, who welcomed people to the symposium. I think the message that we delivered from this Assembly, from the highest house in this jurisdiction, sent a very strong message to them indeed. It in many ways came as a result of when I had a breakfast with multicultural leaders and the interfaith leaders over a period of a couple of weeks, and there was very much a unanimous understanding from those early morning meetings to have this symposium so that we can be very clear in our statement that everyone in our community, regardless of culture, regardless of faith, can come together with respect and dignity and participate fully in this.
For members’ information, also what was released today was the discussion paper on cultural capital. This is seeking submissions from our community about what is the next framework for our multicultural society here in Canberra. There will be an open forum on 29 November for that. Also, the One Canberra Symposium will be published on YouTube tomorrow. I think it did capture a very strong sentiment about the importance of a multicultural community. (Time expired.)
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, what other individuals and groups participated in the symposium?
MS BURCH: I thank Ms Porter for her question. In addition to those I have already mentioned who were on the panel with the Race Discrimination Commissioner, the symposium this morning was attended by the Chief Minister and the Leader of the
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