AFRICAN FESTIVAL

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:48): I rise today to speak about the African Cultural Festival which was held on 9 March at Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide. The African community in South Australia is diverse and made up of many different ethnic and religious groups. The African Communities Council of South Australia is an umbrella organisation consisting of 35 member organisations from 18 African countries. It is truly remarkable that diverse African communities combined their resources and passion for their cultures in organising yet another fantastic African cultural festival.

This annual African festival allows the communities to showcase the vibrant culture and traditions to the South Australian public. This event attracts huge crowds every year, eager to experience exotic cuisines, spectacular and colourful costumes and highly entertaining performance through songs, music and dance. The festival is also a bridge to greater understanding as Africans and non-Africans come together in friendship to celebrate our state's cultural diversity.

It was a pleasure and privilege to attend the colourful and highly entertaining African festival this year with David Pisoni, member for Unley, and shadow minister for education, training, families and multicultural affairs. It was good to see the Lieutenant Governor, Hieu Van Le, and the Hon. Jack Snelling amongst the VIP guests at the event. In addition, I was very pleased to see so many Liberal candidates on the day: Carmen Garcia, Terina Monteagle, Scott Roberts and Joe Barry were showing their support and engaging with African communities on the day. I pay special tribute to Dr Joseph Masika, OAM, Chairperson of the African Communities Council of South Australia. On 26 January this year Dr Masika was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his 27 years of voluntary service to the community in Australia and overseas.

Dr Masika's passion has been particularly in migrants, senior citizens, refugees, disability, mental health and multiculturalism. His outstanding contribution to the community has resulted in considerable community development, and his volunteering and advocacy roles have been instrumental in the strengthening of communities and individuals to ensure that all enjoy a good quality of life in Australia. Dr Masika was a manager of multicultural health, advocacy, counselling and education at the Migrant Resource Centre of SA. He has very impressive credentials.

In addition to thanking Dr Masika, I also extend special thanks to the elders, leaders, committee members and volunteers working tirelessly to put together the African festival and to further the interests of their communities, to build bridges with the broader South Australian community and actively promote the achievements and contributions of the African community.

On this note I also say that I am very proud of the strong track record and support by the Liberal Party to build a vibrant and harmonious multicultural South Australia. Last night David Pisoni, member for Unley, and I had the greatest pleasure in hosting a South Sudanese community forum. We invited 35 leaders from the South Sudanese community to Parliament House. It was a very engaging forum where members share a number of issues and aspirations with the members of the Liberal Party.

It was a very engaging forum, and I thank Michelle Lensink, Isobel Redmond and Dan van Holst Pellekaan for joining us at that forum. We did a tour and the Leader of the Opposition, Steven Marshall, gave us a lot of insights about the House of Assembly, and most of the South Sudanese community groups and leaders really enjoyed the visit. Of course we ran into the group that was hosted by the Hon. John Dawkins, and the Hon. Terry Stephens was also there, so they also enjoyed meeting the other members of the community.

The South Sudanese community shared with us many of the aspirations and visions. They also like to identify and nurture leadership potential within the South Sudanese communities, especially amongst their young people who will be their future ambassadors and decision-makers. They also like to actively engage with politicians to help promote the achievements and contributions of the African community, to further enhance the economic, social and cultural development of our state. It is truly wonderful to see them engaging in the democratic process and also engaging with politicians who would actually help them develop policies that will strengthen their abilities to become better citizens in our state.

I wish to talk about Dr Masika for a second because he is a true promoter in addressing a lot of problems not only for his community but also he is a great white ribbon ambassador—a bit like the honourable President sitting in the chair. He is also the winner of the Australian-African Man of the Year Award 2011. Dr Masika also is a winner of the African-Australian Living Legend Award of 2012, so a very remarkable man. On that note, I would just like to say that it has truly been a highly enjoyable event at the African festival. I look forward to the next one; it will be bigger and better.