Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to share with the House the Wyndham Eid Festival, which I attended on 27 September. It was a fantastic day, a beautiful sunshiny Melbourne day. I would like to congratulate the Wyndham Eid Festival committee and the president, Abdul Mujeeb, for all of the work they put into our inaugural festival. It was a fantastic day, as I said. It celebrated the cultural diversity of the Muslim community in Wyndham and the cultural diversity of Wyndham more generally, and it brought together families from across the city—12,000 was the estimate of those that attended that day. It was a fabulous day.

It was marred the next week by the terrible things that occurred in Bendigo, where the United Patriots Front sent all the wrong messages about marvellous, multicultural Melbourne and the way we like to live in Victoria. I would like to put on record my appreciation for Labor Premier Daniel Andrews' strong words condemning those people who want to destroy the happy, multicultural, inclusive society that we have in Victoria. I am very proud to represent a seat where so many people come from around the world to share their lives, to build their futures together, to build harmony and to build a great society.