Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night there were scenes in Bendigo that should be condemned by all of us. The City of Greater Bendigo held a council meeting and the meeting was interrupted by quite violent threats of intimidation. I stand here as the federal member for Bendigo to say, yet again, that these are not the actions of the majority of people who live in our great city. We are a town, and the City of Greater Bendigo region, of 100,000 people and these are the actions of a small few—a small few who are upset that the council made a decision many months ago to approve a planning application to build the city's first mosque.

Bendigo is an inclusive community. Since the gold rush days we have had many people from many different countries migrate, set up and establish themselves in our home town and in our city. That has added to our social fabric and made us an inclusive, exciting and diverse community. We are, at the same time as this planning application to build our first mosque, building the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, which we believe will be a pilgrimage point for many people who wish to embrace, celebrate and share the Buddhist religion.

We are also home to one of the most beautiful Catholic cathedrals in Australia. The actions at last night's council meeting were not a demonstration of freedom of speech. The council meeting was shut down. Anybody who saw what happened in the media would have felt themselves intimidated. This was not peaceful protest. This was not exercising democratic rights or freedom of speech. What we saw last night—like we saw at previous rallies in Bendigo—were threats of violence and intimidation, and they should be condemned.

Last night I made a statement like that on my Facebook page, and it has received a lot of comments locally. One person said, 'I am concerned about the mosque being built and about religion. We don't want those kinds in our town.' That is unacceptable. What I usually do when somebody makes that kind of comment, is I send them a link to the citizenship document, to remind people about our rights and obligations as Australian citizens, to remind them that we have freedom of religion and freedom of speech and that we are an inclusive society and community.

I have to say that last night I did not send that link, because just recently the document changed. I did not send the link because I believe the new document will actually incite further fear in my community. It no longer talks about being an inclusive community. It may, on the first few pages, talk about some of our rights but, once you get to page 5, it starts talking about home-grown terrorism and terrorism in our society. This is no longer a document that I am proud of. (Time expired)