Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to acknowledge a community initiative that is helping migrants to feel welcome and is raising cultural awareness in my electorate of Bass. The Community Kitchen project is a collaborative project between the Migrant Resource Centre Northern Tasmania and the Inveresk Tavern, where different migrant groups take on the cooking duties at the Tavern each Sunday afternoon.

This project has been a big hit in Launceston and has received national media coverage, with excellent attendance and dishes often selling out before closing time. The Community Kitchen gives our migrant groups a chance to build skills and experience as well as raising funds for their communities. That is not to mention the social connections and capacity building that participants are enjoying.

Around 200 people are settled in Launceston each year, with 13 migrant groups now resident in the city, eight of whom are involved in the Community Kitchen—including groups representing Bhutan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Eritrea and the Congo. It is fantastic to see local residents engaging with local migrant communities through the universal language of food.

I would like to congratulate the Migrant Resource Centre and the Inveresk Tavern on this fantastic initiative and thank each of the migrant groups involved for sharing a part of their culture with the Launceston community. Particularly having regard to the attack on multiculturalism, which should see this week an introduction of the new citizenship legislation, I commend to this House the initiatives that are taking place in local communities to enhance our multicultural future.