Page 410 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 14 February 2017
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celebrations across the festival are not to be missed. As we head towards the festival this weekend, I encourage all members and the Canberra community more broadly to take part and connect with others from the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian and Tibetan communities—whoever is represented at the festival—to celebrate the Lunar New Year. I wish you and your families a safe, happy and prosperous Year of the Rooster.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (4.13): The Lunar New Year is celebrated by millions of people around the world of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Tibetan heritage, including, of course, many Canberrans. The Lunar New Year is an important time for families and friends to come together to celebrate peace, harmony and prosperity. At new year’s feasts, traditional foods are enjoyed, with many thought to bring good fortune and luck. Red envelopes are given to children to wish them health and success in the coming year.
Ms Stephen-Smith spoke about the festivities at the temple at Lyneham. As always, it was great fun: the lighting of the fireworks, the entertainment by members of the community and seeing the progress that is being made on the temple in Lyneham, as well as the great hospitality and food. It is always a joyous occasion. What I particularly like about that one is that the invitation is open to the whole community. Many people come who are not practising Buddhists in that sense, but there is a sense of coming together on the occasion. For me, that signifies the spirit of the new year celebrations.
As has been noted, this year is the Year of the Rooster. According to the Chinese zodiac, people born in this year are brave, responsible and punctual. These are characteristics that we as an Assembly can seek to emulate as we work for the people of the ACT and probably in our personal lives as well.
Canberrans are a compassionate, generous people and today’s matter of public importance presents an opportunity to promote and celebrate the diversity and harmony within our community. This city has a proud history of welcoming and embracing migrant communities and, of course, the ACT government declared the ACT a refugee welcome zone in 2016.
Our many multicultural communities have embraced and continue to make a significant contribution to our city. Multicultural communities comprise and are supported by many small voluntary groups and organisations who work tirelessly to advocate for the needs of their diverse communities. I would like to recognise and thank all of these groups for their work delivering language, cultural and community activities across Canberra.
Although the Canberra community is generally very welcoming and supportive of cultural diversity, unfortunately there are still instances of discrimination and intolerance. There remains a need to continue to educate our community about diversity and the rights of all people to live a life free from discrimination and vilification. I think now is a particularly difficult time with some of the national and international discussion about differing communities and how we approach
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