Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to register my condemnation of an act of racial hatred and vandalism in my electorate over the weekend. On Saturday morning members of the St Andrew's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Lidcombe awoke to find their church desecrated with racially abusive graffiti. This despicable act is an attempt to import a foreign conflict to a country that prides itself on being peaceful and multicultural. Considering the church commemorates Ukrainians who died fighting the Nazis in World War II, the use of swastikas is particularly upsetting. I congratulate Father Simon and all the congregation for responding with true Christian values: through praying for the vandals and their forgiveness while coming together as a united community to reject the provocation.

On Sunday I joined the members of the community as a fellow Catholic and as their MP for liturgy and to help commence getting rid of the graffiti. I congratulate the church's parish and the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations for their positive and effective work in their community. This attempt to import conflicts from other countries to Australia has rightly been condemned by all levels of government as heinous and abhorrent, as will other incidents of racially, ethnically and politically motivated vilification in Australia's culturally diverse society, as they have and always should be.