Thursday, 14 November 2024

Adjournment

Guru Nanak Lake

Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (17:11): (931) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Planning. In beginning my adjournment matter I want to note that tomorrow is the birthdate of Guru Nanak Dev ‍Ji. Guru Nanak is the founder of the Sikh religion and is one of history’s most significant religious figures. I note without passing an opinion that the government has renamed the Berwick Springs lake in Berwick to Guru Nanak Lake. Anything associated with the Guru should be revered. It should be, as the Sikhs would say, pure like a gurdwara, which is a Sikh temple, taking the name of the Guru. Things must be pure and uncontaminated with sin or excess when the Guru’s name is used. Hence at a gurdwara you cannot eat meat, you cannot smoke and you must certainly not attend having drunk or consumed alcohol in and around the gurdwara. To do those things would be utterly blasphemous to the Guru and indeed to all Sikhs.

I was stunned earlier today to hear the Minister for Multicultural Affairs state in the Legislative Council, ‘Let’s all go to Guru Nanak Lake and have a barbecue.’ The minister may hold that job, but she very, very clearly does not understand that key part of her portfolio. I was stunned at the ignorance of that comment. To invoke a big meat cook-up, no doubt where people drink alcohol and some presumably smoke, in a location that evokes the Guru’s name, encouraged by the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, I believe is stunningly ignorant.

So tonight I ask the Minister for Planning for the following action. Given the minister gazetted the Guru’s name for this location, can she write to me and indeed to the local Sikh community in the south-eastern suburbs and advise clearly on whether she did also gazette the prohibition of the consumption of meat and alcohol at a location that invokes the name of the much-revered Guru Nanak, whose birthdate is tomorrow. Or was this gazettal done not indeed to honour those who know the Guru to be one of the most respected figures in human history, but purely for politics?