As announced by the Queensland Premier at 8am on 8 January, Greater Brisbane will go into lockdown from 6pm today for three days until 6pm on Monday 11 January 2021. This is to give contact tracers time to ensure the UK strain of COVID-19 is not circulating in the community.
The Greater Brisbane lockdown area includes Brisbane City, Ipswich City, Logan City, Redland City and Moreton Bay Regional areas.
As an essential service, Multicultural Australia will continue to provide services to our clients and communities during this lockdown period. Please continue to contact us through our usual contact numbers, during business hours on 3337 5400, our email welcome@multiculturalaustralia.org.au or our emergency phone line which is available to clients.
You are only allowed to leave your home for one of the following reasons:
Other important points of the Premier’s announcement included:
For the latest Queensland Government updates regarding the Greater Brisbane lockdown please visit: https://www.qld.gov.au/health/conditions/health-alerts/coronavirus-covid-19/current-status/greater-brisbane-lockdown
On behalf of everyone at Multicultural Australia, we wish you a safe and happy holidays.
2020 presented many challenges, but we still have a lot to celebrate. With your support, we were able to help the Multicultural Australia community stay safe, connected and informed through a challenging time.
We continue to hear inspiring stories about people finding belonging here in Australia and the rich cultural contributions all of us bring to our communities. These stories highlight our strength, resilience and shared humanity.
In spite of global lock downs, we have been able to take you around the world through art, performance, film and storytelling at our World Refugee Day Concert and REIMAGINE Virtual Events.
Multicultural Australia is deeply grateful for the passion and commitment of our community of stakeholders, partners and friends who share the vision of an inclusive and welcoming Queensland.
We will be taking a short break from midday on Thursday December 24th 2020, reopening on Monday, January 4th 2021.
We will continue to support our clients throughout this period, but our offices will be closed.
We hope everyone has the opportunity to relax and celebrate with family and friends this holiday season.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
A message from our Chair, Peter Forday |
2020 has been a unique year of change globally, nationally and in our local communities.
While our sector has been heavily impacted by border closures, our community has worked hard to support each other.
Connection has never been more important and we continue to work closely together with our clients and communities here in Queensland.
The Board of Multicultural Australia has been working hard to identify a gifted leader who is passionate about securing great opportunities for Queensland’s newest arrivals and ambitious for the organisation that champions them.
We are very confident we have achieved exactly that.
We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have appointed Christine Castley to be the next CEO of Multicultural Australia.
Christine is a highly credentialed leader with a strong track record of delivering significant reform and innovation. She is currently the Deputy Director-General at the Department of Premier and Cabinet (Queensland).
Prior to this role, Christine was Deputy-Director for Housing, Homelessness and Sport in the Department of Housing and Public Works. In this role, Christine led major reform including the development of the Queensland Housing Strategy 2017-2027.
Christine’s appointment as CEO of Multicultural Australia marks a return to an area of personal passion and commitment – the important work of assisting migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum.
Christine was an Immigration Advisor in the 1990s and served as Chair and Member of the Management Committee for the (then) South Brisbane Immigration and Community Legal Service (currently the Refugee and Immigration Legal Service) from 1992-2002 and in 2011-2012.
This experience, together with her long-standing work in the social justice sector, reflects Christine’s continuing commitment to equal access to justice and services for everyone.
She has a deep belief that we can all play a part in helping the most disadvantaged people in our community, including refugees, migrants and people seeking asylum, to live in safety and prosper while they contribute to our communities.
Christine is a Board Member of the Residential Tenancies Authority in Queensland and a Board Member for the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Adding to her vast professional experience, Christine holds a Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Arts, Postgraduate Diploma in Arts and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Queensland.
We know that shaping our organisation to best support new Queenslanders long into the future needs vision, energy and an ability to see things through. The Board is confident that Christine will build on our 22-year track record of success for our clients.
Christine commences at Multicultural Australia on 2 November 2020. We look forward to welcoming Christine, as she learns about our clients and the Multicultural Australia Way, from Acting CEO Tim Draper and indeed the whole Multicultural Australia team.
Please help us give Christine a very warm welcome from the Multicultural Australia community as we continue to shape our welcoming Queensland together.
Yours sincerely
Peter Forday
Chair of the Board
Queensland’s Minister for Employment and Small Business will address a Small Business and Social Enterprise Forum presented by the COVID-19 Working Group, Community Leaders, QPASTT and Multicultural Australia this Wednesday evening.
The online Forum aims to discuss initiatives to address the needs of small businesses and social enterprises owned and/or run by Queenslanders from refugee and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
In particular, Forum participants will discuss the challenges and opportunities for business and social enterprise in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Hon. Shannon Fentiman, MP, Minister for Employment and Small Business will address the Forum about the Queensland economic outlook more broadly, and the Government plans for creating job opportunities and supporting social enterprises and social benefit businesses.
There will also be information from Federal Government representatives about changes in Jobkeeper and from universities and organisations working in social enterprise and social procurement.
Our cultural Community Leaders and local entrepreneurs will also be sharing their experiences of both their start up stories and their experiences through COVID 19.
Please join us for the forum and let us know if you would like to pose a question to the speakers by emailing AmeliaS@multiculturalaustralia.org.au
To register and receive the ZOOM link, RSVP to the Small Business and Social Enterprise Forum.
Multicultural Australia is a proud founding member of the Queensland Community Alliance – 38 civil society organisations including faith, community groups, unions and ethnic associations working together to build a fair and compassionate Queensland for the common good.
Representing almost two million Queenslanders, the Alliance has listened to thousands of stories from our communities and created a courageous, community-led vision – a Maroonprint for Queensland.
This Monday, 14 September, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Leader of the Opposition Deb Frecklington will be joining the Alliance for a huge online Community Assembly.
They will respond directly to our vision for a Queensland where all people are welcomed and included, where our jobs are secure and where we care for each other. You can read the Alliance’s 2020 Election Policy Proposals here.
Will you join us and be part of this moment?
The Community Assembly is open to all Queenslanders and is a chance for each one of us to be part of building a better future together.
The Multicultural Australia community will be showing up for this very important moment and we hope to see you there.
This Wear it Purple Day, we’re proud to introduce the Multicultural Australia LGBTIQ+ Working Group.
This powerful video shares the moving and inspiring stories from our staff who have created our LGBTIQ+ Working Group to support clients, communities and colleagues on issues affecting people who identify as LGBTIQ+ and for people who are deeply allied to equality, justice and celebrating our diversity.
Wear It Purple Day was established a decade ago after several rainbow young people took their own lives following bullying and harassment resulting from the lack of acceptance of their sexuality or gender identity. Wear It Purple Day is celebrated every year on August 28th to raise awareness and build a movement of inclusion.
You can be part of the change, find out more about Wear it Purple Day at https://www.wearitpurple.org/
Multicultural Australia is recruiting for a new CEO.
It’s a magnificent challenge for a gifted leader who is passionate about finding fair opportunities for Australia’s newest arrivals and ambitious for the organisation that champions them.
We have commissioned Windsor Group to manage this important assignment for us.
If you are excited to be part of our journey, we would welcome your expression of interest.
Please review the role advertisement for details and how to apply.
It is with regret that the board of Multicultural Australia announces today that Bill Gamack has resigned as CEO and will be leaving us on 21 August.
When he joined us in January 2020, Bill’s focus was to continue to build on both our strong financial position and our important “change the conversation” work about creating a more welcoming Queensland. Who could have imagined that just two months later, Australia’s borders would be closed and all of us would be living and working, socially distanced, within progressive government restrictions. As an organisation whose foundational service is the settlement of refugees, the closure of Australia’s borders has been very difficult for Multicultural Australia and the settlement sector generally.
Although leading through a global pandemic was not quite what Bill had imagined when he took up the appointment of Multicultural Australia CEO, through the peak of COVID-19 in Queensland he remained committed to ensuring our services remained accessible for our clients and that Queensland’s cultural communities were deeply supported through this crisis.
We openheartedly acknowledge and thank Bill for this leadership and for his stewardship of Multicultural Australia through these unprecedented times. We know that he stands with us, as a passionate advocate for a welcoming Queensland, as a member of the Multicultural Australia alumni.
We will be in touch in the coming days with details about our plans to recruit Multicultural Australia’s next CEO. In the interim, we have appointed Tim Draper, our Executive Manager for Economic and Social Inclusion as Acting CEO.
Please join me in wishing Bill all the best for his future endeavours.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Forday
Chair, Multicultural Australia
A message from Bill…
I am very grateful for the time I have had in an organisation which does such important work in the Queensland community. I want to acknowledge and thank all those I have worked with – the Board, staff members, our stakeholders and community leaders – who have contributed to and enriched my time here. The past many months have represented a very difficult time for the humanitarian settlement sector, but much has been achieved.
Multicultural Australia is a remarkable organisation full of many dedicated and amazing people. I will remain a major supporter of their work and I wish them all the very best for the future.
For me – it will be a new path with new adventures and I am excited by the opportunities – even in these ‘strange’ times!!
I look forward to continuing my personal mission of making a difference in the lives of those who are disadvantaged.
We’re all human right? You. Me. That’s what unites us. Even though we might come from different places or different cultures, the one thing that we all have in common is our humanity.
That’s a pretty solid foundation to build on when we think about how we grow together as neighbours, as communities, and as a nation looking to create the right conditions for all of us to thrive.
Humans are storytellers. Apparently we’ve been doing it since forever, to make sense and meaning of our world, to connect our personal experiences with others, to find belonging.
Each and every one of us has a unique story to tell. At Multicultural Australia, we’re committed to raising the voices of Australians from refugee, migrant or other diverse backgrounds so that the wider community can hear first hand about their lives, their experiences and the contributions they are making to our nation.
So we are thrilled to be a sponsor of the In My Country Podcast which launched on World Refugee Day in June, 2020. The premiere season of In My Country shares the first-hand stories of six Aussies who came to Australia as a refugee or person seeking asylum. Conversations delve into “identity, religion, sexuality, the arts, parenting, culture, fashion, meaning, purpose, and the many places we call home.”
In My Country was created by Multicultural Australia alumni Pia Perversi-Burchall and Adam Wood. They have created this important platform grounded in the strong sense of humility, ethics and justice that they have brought to their work supporting refugees to settle in Queensland. You can read their story about creating In My Country and the diligence they have brought to enabling these remarkable Aussies to share their stories safely.
By supporting In My Country, Multicultural Australia hopes that listeners find insight and inspiration from the incredible lives, stories and experience of refugees and people seeking asylum who call Australia home.
Listen and subscribe to In My Country through:
Or:
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2BMcfgs
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2CbqWJY
PodLink: https://pod.link/1518632425
The Queensland Government is supporting business and communities to mobilise and stand up for our proud, multicultural State with the Unite Against Racism – Call To Action Toolkit.
We all know that racism and discrimination have been under the spotlight in recent months. During the emergence and spread of COVID-19 in Australia earlier this year, members of the Asian Australian and Iranian Australian communities were being blamed or ostracised. People of all ages were being harassed and attacked out in the community and at their own homes.
Now, following two young Queensland women facing charges for breaching coronavirus restrictions, Queensland’s African communities are dealing with traumatic race-based abuse online, in the public and media discourse, and out in the community. More heartbreaking is that many African Australians experiencing this abuse are people who have fled war and persecution and have found safety and belonging in Australia as refugees.
Queensland’s Multicultural Recognition Act 2016, Multicultural Queensland Charter and Queensland Multicultural Policy – Our story claim Queensland as a welcoming, inclusive and fair State that “recognises the fundamental place of First Nations Peoples and the benefits migration has brought, and continues to bring, to the community, our culture and our economy.” Together we are stronger. Together we can claim our shared identity as Queenslanders from a multitude of backgrounds with infinite stories to tell.
The Unite Against Racism – Call To Action Toolkit invites Queenslanders to come together to share positive messages about diversity and inclusion. The Toolkit contains a number of resources that businesses, community grous and indivuiduals can share through their social networks, as well as some ideas for engaging people in disucssions around these important issues in workplaces.
Access the Unite Against Racism – Call To Action Toolkit through the Department of Local Government, Racing and Multicultural Affairs’ website.
Multicultural Australia acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today.
As the world’s oldest living cultures, we recognise that Australia always has been and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
We who come from many places pay our respects to Elders throughout all time and commit to learning from the knowledge, traditions, stories, spirituality, and experiences of Aboriginal people as we learn to live on their land.
We walk together in solidarity of the pain of the past, and in shared hope for the future.
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