Tuesday, 23 May 2023

Ministers statements: multicultural communities

Colin BROOKS (Bundoora – Minister for Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:23): Victoria is doing what matters. We are the multicultural capital of the country, and we are ensuring that multicultural communities can celebrate their cultures and traditions with equal rights, protections and opportunities. To this end, we have criminalised the intentional public display of the Nazi symbol, and we are expanding that to include the hateful Nazi salute. We will strengthen the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 to make it easier to prosecute any individual who incites hatred or bigotry based on someone’s faith or race. The Bracks Labor government introduced that landmark legislation more than 20 years ago, and the Andrews Labor government will make it stronger.

Our government has promised $6 million to fund an Islamophobia and antisemitism campaign to stamp out racism and protect our Jewish and Islamic communities. We have also established the Anti-Racism Taskforce, which is chaired by the member for Preston and member Sheena Watt in the other place. It is currently developing the first ever statewide anti-racism strategy and will soon establish the new Multicultural and Multifaith Law Reform Consultative Committee to ensure the voices of our diverse communities are heard in the development of Victorian laws.

We know that having safe and secure places to celebrate and share cultural history and traditions is so important to our multicultural communities, which is why we have pledged $40 million to help community organisations build, renovate or upgrade community infrastructure and $12 million for the multicultural festivals and events program.

We are proud to support Victoria’s multicultural seniors also with a strong sense of connection and community by providing ongoing support to some 1001 multicultural seniors organisations. In recognition of the critical role of multicultural media, we have committed to providing $1.5 million in support and tripling the proportion of government advertising expenditure to multicultural media to 15 per cent of total government advertising spend. The Andrews Labor government has a proud record of supporting multicultural and multifaith communities and a plan to keep backing them well into the future.