Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General. Recently I was pleased to join you at the youth centre at Hume City Council in Melbourne, Victoria, to discuss a groundbreaking local project being developed to help mentor young people away from extremist ideologies. The Hume Anti-Violent Extremism Youth project, or the HAVEY project, is one of the inaugural recipients of a community grant under the Australian government's Building Community Resilience Youth Mentoring Grants Program. The Australian government provided the Hume City Council with a $200,000 grant to run the HAVEY project, which will focus on supporting young people through individual and group mentoring. The project will comprise of: mentoring by cultural leaders, youth workers and police youth liaison officers; training sessions on topics such as social connectedness, discrimination, advocacy and developing positive relationships; promotion of cross-cultural understanding between young people from different ethnic groups; and participation in community events and recreational activities.

We know that this program is working extremely well. At the time we were there it was great to have young people there and some of their mentors involved. We were all very keen on what the government was doing and we were shown results from the trial. Could the Attorney-General please explain what other initiatives the government has funded in order to counter violence and extremism as part of the government's all-hazards approach to national security?

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