Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

There are many people in the electorates of Bonner, Griffith and Moreton who attend the much-loved Holland Park Mosque. The Holland Park Mosque was featured in that delightful SBS documentary called The Mosque Next Door, starring, dare I say, Moreton's cricket captain, Ali Kadri. It is Australia's oldest continuing-running mosque and has been operating for over 100 years.

I've enjoyed many celebrations, and I'm sure my good friends the member for Bonner and the member for Griffith have also enjoyed spending time with the people at the mosque—and some sad moments there as well. It saddens all three of us that this morning members of the mosque were confronted with graffiti on their front wall. The graffiti itself was hateful and divisive; it was vandalism that is disguising and unacceptable. It showed no respect for the people who have, for many years, worshipped there and who will continue to worship there after this morning. It's a place of meditation and peace, and it's welcoming. Us three—probably the entire chamber—stand with the Islamic community against such vile conduct.

We on the south side of Brisbane are a close-knit community and we care for one another. The mosque is a part of that community, having been there for more than a century. Support for those who live locally will always be bigger and kinder than the behaviour of the gutless, divisive coward who committed this act of vandalism. Australians are better than this. Good people love their neighbours and good people will always fight against religious discrimination.

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