Cumberland Council votes against Racism Not Welcome Here campaign

An anti-racism campaign backed by multiple political parties including One Nation has been rejected by a diverse council after a mayor used his casting vote to oppose it.

Joanne Vella

@Parramatta_News

4 min read

March 23, 2021 - 6:00AM

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Cumberland Council won’t support the Racism Not Welcome Here campaign after mayor Steve Christou opposed it on his casting vote during a Wednesday night meeting.

Labor councillor Kun Huang raised the motion that would have installed bilingual signs bearing the Racism Not Welcome Here message in five languages throughout the community.

Former Socceroo Craig Foster has backed the campaign, saying bigotry and prejudice was growing in Australia particularly towards the Asian, Muslim and African communities.

But the vote was split and Cr Christou opposed it, weeks after an 11,000-signature petition called for him to be sacked for racist and offensive comments following a decision rejecting a proposed mosque at Granville.

Former Socceroo Craig Foster and councillor Kun Huang support the Racism Not Welcome Here campaign.

In January Cr Christou called the Land and Environment Court’s rejection of the mosque a decision that “serves the greater betterment for the Granville community”.

Cr Huang, who has become the recent victim of a racist attack by an anonymous person who wrote to him and three other Sydney councillors of Chinese descent that “all Chinese people deserve to be killed at once’’, led the anti-racist motion.

The campaign — which was endorsed by all Australia’s major parties, as well as the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, and One Nation, would have allocated $5000 towards installing the signs.

Cr Huang, spoke of random strangers calling him a “Ching Chong Chinaman’’and enduring racism growing up in the Sutherland Shire when his family migrated when he was nine years old in 1999.

“Over the past 12 months there has been an alarming increase in reports of racial abuse and violence against Asian Australians,’’ he said.

“A study by ANU (Australian National University) at the end of last year found that 84.5 per cent of Asian Australians experienced at least one incident of discrimination between January and October last year.’’

Councillor Suman Saha said the council was responsible for shaping public progress about racist attitudes.

“For those who think there is no racism in Cumberland City Council, let me tell you that unfortunately it does exist,’’ he said.

“It occurs when people look at me differently and comment on my appearance. It occurs when people call me a Sri Lankan refugee, curry people. It occurs when one of my Muslim sisters who lives in Cumberland City Council receives threatening calls and messages just for sharing her views publicly.

“Will a street sign change all of this? The answer is no but it will be a start. It will send a message to the people that racism is not welcome at Cumberland. To the wider NSW community they will know that we will not tolerate injustice.’’

Auburn is just one of the diverse suburbs in the Cumberland melting pot. Picture: Angelo Velardo

But the signs were deemed unnecessary by half the council, where almost 132,000 residents, or more than half, were born overseas.

Our Local Community councillor Paul Garrard spurned the proposal.

“Racism is a terrible word and I don’t want to see it in any fashion or form,’’ he said.

“The great majority of people don’t want racism but we don’t need to promote the word through signage through the city.’’

Liberal councillor Ned Attie said nearly 132,000 — more than half of the Cumberland population — was born overseas and was an inclusive community.

Despite a Muslim constituent’s encouraging him to endorse the Racism Not Welcome Here campaign, he disagreed, saying that religion made up 25 per cent of Cumberland and “you’re nowhere near a minority group’’.

“There is no racism issue,’’ he said, adding that signs would incite racism.

“The more you speak about something that is not there, the more it will happen, it’s not the other way around.’’

Councillors Huang, Saha, Lisa Lake, George Campbell, Glenn Elmore, Ola Hamed and Greg Cummings, supported the campaign but councillors Christou Attie, Garrard, Michael Zaiter, Joe Rahme, Tom Zreika and Eddy Sarkis objected to it.

The mayor’s vote led the public gallery to yell out “shocker’’ and Cr Hamed to say “that’s a shame”.

Cumberland Mayor Steve Christou’s has come under fire for comments some people have deemed racist following a mosque decision. Picture: Angelo Velardo

Cr Christou labelled Cr Huang’s idea as political grandstanding and said it failed to provide details about how much the rollout of signs would cost or their locations.

The mayor, “a child of Greek-Cypriot refugees’’ ruled out the need for signs and said he was not racist.

“On our signage we already have ‘welcome, belong succeed’ across the whole local government area. We don’t need further signage which says to tell our residents the behaviour we expect,’’ he said.

“Nobody is not supporting the essence that racism won’t be tolerated. Racism will never be tolerated in Cumberland. It goes against my core values, it goes against all the councillors’ core values and the directors here. We are the second most diverse council in Australia so it will never be tolerated.’’

Cr Christou said 66 per cent of 240,000 Cumberland residents spoke a language other than English.

“We have approximately 150 different languages spoken in Cumberland,’’ he said.