Islamophobia
Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (00:23): (1082) My adjournment is for the Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the other place, and the action I seek is that the minister update me on the initiatives our government is taking to address Islamophobia. As the minister knows, Saturday was International Day to Combat Islamophobia, and it saddens me to say that we have seen a sharp rise in the number of Islamophobic incidents in the past couple of months. If you want to see what this brand of hate looks like up-front, you can view it on my posts on my Facebook page, which talks about our wonderful multicultural Muslim community in Melbourne’s west, with some posts celebrating Ramadan, attending iftar dinners, visiting mosques and even a post acknowledging this day was met with nasty and hate-filled comments from those types of accounts, locked accounts, of folks who more than likely do not even live in Melbourne’s west or are even from Victoria, telling me about how Muslims are violent and murderous extremists and that Islamophobia is a made-up word. Can you believe that? It is racist and ignorant comments like these that justify the work our government is doing to fight Islamophobia here in Victoria, including our new anti-vilification laws and of course the funding for campaigns against Islamophobia. This funding has gone to support Muslim community organisations such as the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights and the Islamic Council of Victoria to go ahead and run support programs and provide resources aimed to help support Muslim Victorians who experience Islamophobia and discrimination.
We are a proud multicultural state here in Victoria, we come from over 300 different cultural backgrounds and we follow more than 200 different faiths. This kind of hate has no place in our community, and folks in my electorate would greatly appreciate an update on how we are working to stamp out Islamophobia in our community.