Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So many Australians, including in my electorate of La Trobe, are greatly concerned about young people entering the path of violent extremism. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the men and women of the Parramatta police station, those involved in the awful incident where a young boy had been radicalised and shot a serving member. Endeavour Hills had the same situation.

Violent extremism is an issue which people in my electorate have raised with me, asking, 'What can you do about it?' including from the Muslim community. I saw a lady by the name of Dr Anne Aly being interviewed on the Sky channel one night. Dr Anne Aly is an expert on counter-terrorism and she is a Muslim. I thought I should touch base with her. I asked, 'What would you recommend we do?' She said she has a program called MYHACK where they conduct a hack-a-thon, which involves young people coming up with ideas to stop other young people entering the world of violent extremism. I would love to thank Dr Anne Aly and also Alim Abdullahi and Sarah Awan for coordinating the MYHACK program in my electorate of La Trobe. We had three teams. It went for 48 hours and the teams came up with practical solutions of how to counter violent extremism. The three teams did an incredible job. I am proud to say that the Australian government contributed federal funding for this. We also had support from Google and other key sponsors. The concept was to pretty much come up with something to stop young people being radicalised.

Project 1 called themselves The Loop. The Loop was designed to connect young Muslim teens with influential and like-minded role models—Loop ambassadors—to create a communal sense of inclusion and constructive goal-setting. This was a modern, innovative take on classical mentoring programs which allowed young Muslims to connect with influencers online, thus providing them with genuine alternatives to influencers like those in ISIS trying to get young people to be radicalised. They did a fantastic job with their project.

The second project to come out of Melbourne's MYHACK is called Podium. Podium is a content platform used to highlight and share creative forms of self-expression by Muslim youth. It provides a safe space for young Muslims to go, share their stories without fear of retribution and ask questions about their faith in a modern context. It was great. I was particularly impressed that the project has now been kindly sponsored by Infinitas Asset Management. They will merge it with a similar project in Perth. I would also like to thank PaVE for also getting involved to support Podium. They plan to take the team to Tokyo, Japan, with YouTube. PaVE stands for People Against Violent Extremism. Congratulations to group 2, who have clearly done a fantastic job.

I am so excited about the winning project. They call themselves The Formers Network, or TFN. They came up with a fantastic initiative for people who have been involved in violent extremism, whether it be white supremacy or people who have become Muslim extremists—it does not matter. Their focus was to get formers and also victims to tell their stories on a website: why they do not want to go down the path of being an extremist and also with regard to being a victim. I again congratulate the Loop team, Olivia, Mohammad and Faseeha; and the Podium team, Jack, Farzana, Anushe and Eleanor; and The Formers Network, Connie, Gulsoom, Ali and Isobel.

As a member of parliament it was great to see predominantly young Muslim people get so excited and so involved in trying to make sure that they can be the change agents to stop other young Muslim people and other young people from being radicalised. It is absolutely fantastic. I am keen to work with Dr Anne Aly to get more of these projects in not only my electorate of La Trobe but all across Australia. This is such a fantastic way to stop violent extremism.