Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be speaking on the adjournment rather than in the full flight of question time, which is not always as easy and pleasant as speaking on the adjournment. But, tonight, unfortunately, I have to talk about the terrible tragedy that occurred for the Druze community in my electorate. The community has its community hall in my electorate and on 4 July it was deliberately burnt to the ground.

The Druze community in Sturt has a very long history, not since the Second World War or even the First World War, but going right back to the 19th century, when the Druze began arriving in South Australia, as they did throughout the Western World, leaving the part of the world in which they live—in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. They have made a great contribution to the state of South Australia over a long period of time.

Unfortunately, on 4 July, foolish, mindless vandals burnt to the ground their community hall, which they had built with their own sweat, tears and cash. Religious artefacts were destroyed, equipment was destroyed and in fact the entire hall was razed to the ground. All the memories that had been invested in their community hall went with the flames of that unfortunate arson attack. It was the place where the Druze community felt safest, where they conducted their funerals, their weddings, their community events, their real interest in education for their young people and it is where they kept their culture and the Arabic language alive for their own community.

They are now trying to get their community back on its legs again, and they will, with a lot of support from the community throughout the eastern and north-eastern suburbs. In fact, within hours and days of the arson attack, other community groups were offering their halls, their school halls and their local council halls for the Druze community. Payneham Hall and Olympic Hall, one of them a local council hall and the other a hall for the Greek community, were offered to the Druze community to conduct their weddings, their funerals and their education, and that has been the case since that time.

Sadly, as is the case with many community organisations, their insurance, while they were covered, was not adequate enough. When many community groups take out insurance on things like community halls they insure them for the value they believe they are worth, but when it comes to rebuilding after a tragedy like this they find they do not have nearly enough funds. So, many of us—members of parliament, local councillors and community leaders—have banded together to ask the state and federal governments, and others, for emergency funding, for infrastructure funding, from whatever pots of money are available through local, state and federal governments to help the Druze community get back on their feet. They are waiting to hear about their tax deductibility status for grants and for contributions made by individuals and businesses in the community as this will encourage people to provide for the Druze community so that they can rebuild the hall.

They have my full support, as I am sure they will have from all members of this House. The Druze community have had a great struggle for hundreds of years because of their great uniqueness, living in the mountains. As the member for Eden-Monaro would know, having been in the Middle East as a soldier, the Druze community have existed in a very fractious part of the world under Israeli control, Lebanese control and Syrian control. They are a very proud and, some would say, feisty people. They have survived. They have often been left alone by all of the different empires that have passed through because of their reputation for being great family people, village people and supporters of each other.

I hope and pray that they will be able to resolve the issues surrounding the refinancing of their Druze community hall as soon as possible. They have been great supporters of mine, as I have been of theirs, over the 19 years that I have been the member for Sturt. I know that the Jewish community, Christian communities and non-religious communities all want to work together to ensure that the Druze community can rebuild as soon as possible. I seek leave to table the letter of support that I wrote to them on 10 August this year to help them with any applications they might be making for grants and support to rebuild their community.

Leave granted.