Thursday, 24 March 2022

Shepparton electorate multicultural communities

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (17:10): (6300) My adjournment is to the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, and the action I seek is that she visit Shepparton to meet with multicultural groups and leaders in the Shepparton community. As the minister knows, Shepparton has a long, proud history of multiculturalism, where people from across the world have come together as refugees or migrants to make it their home. Whether it be our more recent arrivals from African nations or the Middle East or going back to earlier decades when Greek, Italian, Albanian and Turkish communities came to Australia and chose Shepparton district as their home, the community has welcomed them. We have a range of cultural events at the Shepparton Festival currently, where dancers, singers and performers from different cultures display their talents. We have food festivals like the St Georges Road Food Festival and the Shepparton Albanian Harvest Festival, which was on just last week.

As well as these many cultural events that we all enjoy and welcome back after cancellations in 2020 and 2021, our multicultural communities are making great strides in lifting one another up in a professional and business opportunity sense. There is a multicultural women’s group forming with a spotlight on what it really means to back one another and form a solid sisterhood, not just in friendship but in enhancing careers and employment opportunities for all women. I am excited to share a bit more about this project when it launches next week. We have many organisations, such as the Shepparton ethnic council, St Paul’s African House and Philippine House, to name just a few.

We saw the huge team effort our community made during the severe COVID-19 outbreak last year, which landed a third of our population in isolation. Our community was quick to get on their feet and ready to care for every culture when it came to translation services, culturally appropriate food and whatever services were needed in that time of emergency. It was wonderful to see every nationality volunteering to deliver food and medicine to families in isolation and helping in whatever way they could. It showed what a great community Shepparton is and how we get the job done.

I would like the minister to come and meet with some of these groups and leaders to see firsthand the progress we are making as a community and to see if she can offer any assistance to help them keep up their fantastic work, because there is always more to be done.