Renewed vigour needed in combating racial violence
The killing of Mr Magno Alvarado last Saturday in Cronulla and the arrest of a young man for allegedly bashing the elderly man to death in a drunken race-hate crime clearly shows that much work still needs to be done to combat racism by governments and by community organisations.
Australia is clearly a less racist and more accepting nation that it was half a century ago but some sections of our community have failed to embrace this. A very small minority continues to hold extreme racist views that are condemned by most Australians and by the international community.
Australia’s international reputation has been tarnished by the many recent acts of racial violence and by the public ridicule of differing ethnic communities by the media. These incidents have come at a time when much good work is being done to reconcile with indigenous Australians and improve our treatment of ethnic and religious minorities.
The Ethnic Communities Council trusts that our State, Federal and local Governments will all continue with an even greater commitment to promote the wonderful benefits to society and business that multiculturalism has brought to Australia, and that our Police Force will take a renewed vigour in combating all racist sentiments and violence.
Sutherland Shine has continued to experience race related attitudes and crime since the Cronulla riots of 2005. While Sutherland Shire Council has attempted to develop programs to reach out to other local council areas and communities within Sydney, the Council needs to do much more to combat racist and confrontationist attitudes held within the Shire.
The Ethnic Communities Council extends its condolences to the family of Mr Alvardo and to the Filipino community in Sydney and trusts that the justice system can deal with the matter expeditiously to reduce the hurt this is no doubt causing to many people.
*** Ronaldo Villaver is Vice Chair, Ethnic Communities Council of NSW, and President, Philippine Community Council of NSW.
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Being one of the many Asian-Australian immigrants of Australia particularly from the Filipino community then in NSW and now here in Central Queensland; it is inevitable not to get alarmed by this tragic and violent incident. Filipino-Australians is just one of the Asian-Australian population of this country. I just hope the Australian Federal government will not just take this incident for granted. We don’t want this one to be another statistic. Perhaps, the so-called “White-Australia policy is still hiding in some sectors of our Australian society. Australians slogan of Fair dinkum and Fair go is very much liked after all Australia used to be an outpost of the British for their convicts. As the old cliche goes, the problem with prisoners is that they couldn’t forget their jailers. what do you reckon…