I rise to acknowledge the great work and the leadership of Queensland's African community. Just a few weekends ago, Queenslanders were shocked by the murder of the much-loved grandmother Vyleen White at the Redbank Plains shopping centre, just down the Ipswich motorway from my electorate of Moreton. This tragedy has shocked everyone and, unfortunately, has led to some rising tensions in my local community and throughout Queensland, as well as reports of racist attacks. My office has received some calls that were very, very racist in their tone. However, the leadership of the African Communities Council of Queensland, its president, Beny Bol OAM, and members of Mrs White's family, despite their grief, recognised the need to address the growing disharmony in our community.
Vyleen's daughter, Cindy Micallef, worked with Benny Bol. Cindy and Beny came together as a unified force, speaking to media and inviting locals to attend an open community meeting because, in Beny's words, 'The best way we can honour her legacy is for us to preach peace, unity and accountability, and to make sure people who do wrong things are held accountable individually.' Beny said it was important to send a message out that hate has no place here—noble words.
I have spoken before in this House about the Queensland African Communities Council and Beny Bol OAM. Beny has a long history of working with young people and is committed to making sure that African youth are not overrepresented in our criminal justice system. Beny has spent more than 10 years working with young people and was awarded an OAM for his service to youth. Beny believes that many community services and state government programs were not designed or run to meet the needs of younger community members. So, rather than wait for something to come along, the Queensland African Communities Council decided to be proactive and designed a youth early intervention strategy.
The African Village at Moorooka—the suburb I live in, in my electorate—and other sites at Redbank Plains and at Geebung are all part of the strategy. These centres are modelled on the concept of 'it takes a village to raise a child' approach. At each site or each village, African youth mentors organise locally designed and structured activities to support individual young people, families and schools, to make sure those at risk of becoming disengaged at school are supported at an early stage. Just as an aside ,I want to thank my niece, Trish, for donating furniture to these centres. It is important to recognise the crucial work that has been done by our African community leaders because they specifically target young adults who are disengaged from school or who have already spent some time in youth detention. They help them reconnect with their family, their culture, their community, and provide them with the skills to reconnect with our community in a positive way.
But there is other important work we should recognise about the African leadership in Queensland. The African diaspora know about division. In fact, many of their families are here because of division, because their communities disintegrated back in their country of origin. They know what division brings and are quick to present a unified front on any issue that could possibly divide our community. They know because they fled from countries where division forced them to seek refuge elsewhere. They know the destruction, the despair and the tragedy that divisive behaviour can fuel. Some politicians should sit at their feet and learn these lessons.
African leaders like Beny Bol understand and recognise the threats to social cohesion and how important it is that, in times of conflict, crisis and tragedy, our purpose should be to ensure that our people come together to make sure that they don't divide and inflame. Beny and his peers witnessed the results of too little trust and of not seeking common ground. Too little trust undermines the foundation of our democracy. Cheap, short-term political points can actually be long-term corrosive. We know that there are politicians and community leaders fuelling division right now over conflicts that are occurring overseas. They are using these tragedies to promote division in our community because it serves no other purpose than to progress their own political agendas.
As politicians and representatives, we should lead by example. We need to recognise that sometimes what's at stake is something that is far greater than our own selfish political needs. All of us, including politicians in this House, should look at the actions of Beny Bol, Cindy Micallef and Vyleen White's family and take a leaf out of their book as an example of how to show leadership and unite a community that is hurting and grieving. We all want justice and harmony.
